Is SEO Dead? No, It՝s Simply Part of the Bigger Game Now

Created at 2025-06-01

You know, I’ve been doing digital marketing for brands for 18 years. We’ve got 60 people on our team, and every six months someone writes yet another article about «the death of SEO». First SGE was going to kill organic search, then AI would replace content marketing, then paid advertising would become the only traffic source. And each time I think — bloody hell, here we go again 😉

SEO isn’t dead. It’s simply stopped being a standalone discipline. And this is the most significant change in marketing over the past 5 years that most people still haven’t grasped.

At PERFORMIQ, we haven’t been selling «SEO services» for two years now. We sell integrated marketing where organic search is part of the bigger game. And here’s why this works exponentially better.

The End of Solo Channel Era

Remember when you could launch a website, stuff it with keywords, buy some links and get a steady stream of clients? I remember. That was brilliant, but it was in the past. Now the digital ecosystem works differently.

A modern sales funnel looks like this:

User sees your Facebook/Instagram advert
Doesn’t click but remembers the brand
A week later googles «company + reviews»
Reads your case study article found through search
Visits the site but doesn’t submit an enquiry
Sees your retargeting advertisement
Returns via Direct and converts

This is one of dozens of chains! With AI answers, the first brand encounter might even be in GPT (or AI services).

SEO plays a critical role, but not as a first-touch source. Organic search has become the channel that confirms and amplifies the effect from other channels.

We have real statistics from 18 clients in the IT segment. On average, a client touches the brand 7.2 times before purchasing, and only 12% of cases see the first touch happen through organic search. But it’s present in 78% of successful funnels.

How SEO Influences Other Channels’ Effectiveness

Here’s what we discovered analysing multi-channel campaign data:

1. SEO Reduces Cost of Acquisition in Paid Advertising

When a user sees an advert and then finds you organically for a branded query — this increases trust. CTR in advertising increases by 15–25%, and CPC can decrease due to rising quality scores.

Two months ago for a Saam logistics client, we launched content marketing in the blog alongside Google Ads. Over 4 months, the cost per click in advertising dropped from $32 to $15. Why? People began searching for the company by name more often after viewing the adverts.

2. SEO Content Enhances Email Marketing

Informational articles that we create for SEO become content for email newsletters. But not the other way round — articles from newsletters rarely rank in search.

Figures: Open rates for emails with links to blog articles are 23% higher than emails with native content. Why? Users perceive articles as more valuable information than promotional content.

3. SEO-Optimised Content Works Across All Channels

One good expert article can:

Attract traffic from search for 2–3 years
Become the basis for several social media posts
Transform into a lead magnet for email
Be used as a script for video or podcast
Be utilised in sales as expert material

Example: Our article about logistics automation attracted 15,000 unique visitors over a year from search. But it became the foundation for 8 LinkedIn posts, 3 webinars and a podcast. Total reach — over 200,000 people.

SEO’s New Role in the Sales Funnel. Here’s What I Think...

Problem Awareness Stage

Traditionally: SEO attracts traffic through informational queries Now: SEO creates an image of an expert company that works on all other channels

Query examples: «why CRM doesn’t work», «mistakes when choosing a contractor», «how to reduce logistics costs»

Solution Consideration Stage

Traditionally: SEO showcases product advantages Now: SEO helps users decide between you and competitors, even if the user didn’t come from search

Query examples: «reviews about company X», «CRM systems comparison», «who’s better: outsource or in-house specialists»

Purchase Stage

Traditionally: Commercial landing pages Now: Content that helps take the final step towards purchase

Query examples: «CRM implementation cost», «contractor agreement essentials», «advertising launch stages»

Attribution Modelling: How to Calculate SEO Contribution

One of the biggest mistakes we see is evaluating SEO by the «last click» model. When they count that conversion belongs to the channel through which the user came last time.

In reality, everything’s more complex. We use an attribution model with weights by positions:

First touch: 40% weight Intermediate touches: 20% weight divided equally Last touch: 40% weight

Real example:

User saw Instagram advert (didn’t click)
Found you in search for «company + reviews» (read, left)
Clicked email newsletter link (studied services, left)
Entered URL directly in browser and submitted enquiry

By the «last click» model, this conversion belongs to Direct traffic. By our model — Instagram: 40%, SEO: 10%, Email: 10%, Direct: 40%.

Technical Channel Integration

Unified Data Space

We set up data collection in a unified repository for clients where channel intersections are visible:

Which users from SEO later purchase through advertising
How email influences branded search queries
Which blog content gets shared most on social media

Cross-Channel Retargeting

For example:

User read your expert article → show them service-focused adverts
User clicked advert but didn’t enquire → engage email with case study links
User subscribed to newsletter → exclude from advertising audiences

Content Hubs

We create content to work across all channels:

Long expert articles for SEO
Visual cards from these articles for social media
Email newsletters with article links
Videos and podcasts based on articles

Integrated Approach Metrics

We’ve abandoned classic SEO metrics like «positions» and «traffic» in favour of business indicators:

Customer Journey Metrics

Time to conversion: How long from first touch to purchase
Cross-channel conversion rate: Percentage of users converting through multiple channels

Revenue Attribution

Assisted conversions from SEO: How many sales SEO «helped» make
Revenue per content piece: Income each article brought through all channels
LTV by acquisition channel: Lifetime value of clients from different sources

Content ROI

Content engagement score: How content works across all channels
Brand search lift: Growth in branded queries after content campaigns

Common SEO Integration Mistakes

1. Attempting to Force Synergy

Need to create genuinely useful content, then look for intersection points with other channels

2. Different Teams for Different Channels

Unified team or at least weekly syncs between teams

3. Different Analytics for Different Channels

Mistake: Viewing SEO in Search Console, advertising in ad dashboards, email in ESP

Correct: Set up end-to-end analytics with unified success metrics

4. Content Only for Search Queries

Mistake: Creating content strictly for search semantic core

Correct: Creating content for the entire funnel, optimising it for search

The Future of Integrated Marketing

AI and Automation

Soon AI will automatically create content for all channels based on one expert article:

Blog article → social media posts
Case study → email sequence → video script
FAQ → chatbot responses → voice search optimisation

Cookieless Future

With the abandonment of third-party cookies, first-party data becomes critically important. SEO content helps collect this data through:

Blog subscriptions
Material downloads
Comments and surveys
Event registrations

Voice and Visual Search

Optimising content for voice and visual search will require even greater integration with other channels:

Podcasts as sources for voice search optimisation
Instagram and Pinterest as sources for visual search
YouTube as the second-largest search engine

How to Start SEO Integration Right Now

Step 1: Current State Audit

Conduct analysis of channel intersections:

What % of users interact with multiple channels?
Which blog articles get shared most on social media?
Which content most influences branded queries?

Step 2: Set Up End-to-End Analytics

Google Analytics 4 with configured conversions
UTM tagging for all channels
CRM with lead sources
Call tracking for phone call monitoring

Step 3: Create a Content Plan

Plan content not for individual channels but for funnel stages:

Awareness: expert articles + social media + PR
Consideration: comparisons + case studies + newsletters + retargeting
Decision: landing pages + reviews + personalised offers

Step 4: Set Up Cross-Channel Automation

Blog reader retargeting
Email sequences for search users
Excluding converted users from advertising

SEO as Part of the Ecosystem

SEO hasn’t died and won’t die. But the times when it could be considered a separate acquisition channel are gone forever.

At PERFORMIQ, we realised long ago: modern marketing is a symphony where each channel plays its part, but music only emerges when they play together 🎼

The integrated approach allows:

Reducing acquisition costs by 25–40%
Increasing client LTV by 30–50%
Boosting marketing ROI by 2–3 times
Creating more stable and predictable lead flow

Most importantly — you stop depending on one platform’s algorithms. When Google changes its algorithm, you have content for social media. When advertising prices rise, you have an email database. When ad accounts get blocked, you have organic traffic.

This is the real bigger game. Want to learn to play it? 🚀