How to integrate SEO into your broader marketing strategy

SEO isn’t what it used to be. 

With AI-driven search results, increasing zero-click searches, and more competition for user attention, ranking on Google is tougher than ever. 

But search is still a major traffic driver – if you adapt. 

The key?

Treat SEO as part of a broader, integrated marketing strategy.

This article breaks down a simple framework to align SEO with your overall marketing funnel, ensuring you reach, engage, and convert your ideal customers effectively.

The evolving SEO challenge: Why optimization alone isn’t enough

Nowadays, it’s not enough to have a well-optimized and search engine-friendly website. 

The modern SERP is a busy and diverse space. Any coverage you crave has to compete with heavy ad coverage, AI Overviews, and a wide range of SERP features.  

Zero-click searches are also on the rise, with overall clicks declining while Google’s own properties gain more traffic. 

At the same time, an increasing number of platforms are competing for user attention. They’re designed to keep users engaged within their ecosystem rather than directing them elsewhere.

Often, the user experience here is solid, but as search marketers trying to drive traffic, it does make marketing and search marketing more complex and competitive.

That said, search remains the top source of traffic, and with Google leading the way in search, browsers, mobile, and video, marketers must rise to the challenge.

So this raises the question: what is the best way to do SEO in 2025, and what does SEO look like in 2025 and beyond?

Years ago, SEO was the main marketing tactic for many small businesses and could work on its own, with occasional support from PPC or remarketing.

SEO is still important, but for most businesses, it works best as part of a broader marketing strategy. 

While developing a unique SEO strategy is essential, it should be integrated with the customer journey. 

This reduces reliance on a single tactic, and based on what we’ve learned so far, an integrated approach is more effective in today’s omnichannel environment. 

Below, we outline a process for mapping out a marketing strategy using a simple funnel, showing how SEO planning fits into each step.

Customers and the continuum of behavior 

Any sensible marketing approach starts with considering the target audience.

How will you niche down and segment ideal customers? 

The temptation is often to go broad, as that gives you more scope. However, going broad results in bland, boring messaging that speaks to nobody. 

By niching down and laser-targeting your ideal audience, you can craft highly engaging messaging around the problems they must overcome and their goals. This kind of targeted approach works. 

The marketing environment evolves so quickly. It can be tempting to think nothing stays the same. 

But while change is constant, one thing remains steady: your customer.

People are still people. Most purchases will follow a predictable pattern of behavior. 

At its core, this process rarely changes, even while the environment keeps shifting and evolving. 

Search will give us some insight, but this does not always map fully to the customer journey.

If you were buying a kitchen, would you start on Google? 

Or, would you start to follow kitchen accounts on Instagram? 

To some extent, that depends on the customer profile.

As an example, I’d go to Google as I am a search guy. But my wife would start on Instagram (and she is the real decision-maker for this kind of purchase). 

To market effectively here, you must understand all the touch points and be present at each point along the journey, or you will miss opportunities to engage and educate your customers. 

The key to great SEO is to map that to an overall understanding of the customer segments and the various touchpoints to take them from click to customer. 

Funnel thinking 

The customer journey can often be represented as a funnel. 

While there are many takes on the continuum of behavior and the funnel, the classic funnel is always a variation of awareness, consideration, and decision.

In the chaotic world of digital marketing, you can bring some order to the chaos by using robust, time-proven marketing methodologies and frameworks. 

Funnel frameworks like AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) and AIEDA (which adds evaluation for online purchases) have long-shaped marketing strategies.

Modern models like REP and RACE refine these concepts for the digital landscape.

There’s no single “right” funnel. The best approach depends on your business. Start with a simple structure and add complexity only when needed.

At my agency, we use REP – reach, engage, persuade – a streamlined funnel that integrates these elements. 

REP provides a framework for tailoring tactics, platforms, messaging, and content to each stage of the customer journey.

Integrating SEO into a REP marketing funnel 

Much like RACE, which is actually PRACE due to its initial planning stage, REP also includes two additional steps that frame the core process.

It goes something like this:

• Prep: Identify a customer segment and strategize.
• Reach: Identify all the ways to reach those users.
• Engage: Document all the ways to engage, educate, and engage those users.
• Persuade: Convince these people to do business with you.
• Repeat: Continue to develop the lifetime value of the customer.

Businesses often offer a mix of products and services, so a funnel system can be applied at multiple levels – from the overall business to specific products, services, or customer segments. 

Remember, marketing planning is most effective as a group effort. 

Involving people from marketing, sales, operations, and customer service helps map the customer journey and identify all key touchpoints.

Step 1: Prep

Marketing to everyone is marketing to nobody. 

Identify a customer segment and be as specific as possible. Make sure to:

• Focus on a carefully defined niche – one that represents an ideal customer segment.
• Use the PVP (personal fulfillment, value to the customer, profitability for your business) framework to assess potential niches.
• Identify the key tasks your customer needs to complete.
• Determine their goals.
• Understand the pains or problems they need to overcome.
• Document these insights in a detailed customer persona.

The more you can understand your customer, the better results you will have.

Use the Value Proposition Canvas as a brainstorming tool to map out customer jobs, goals, pain points, etc.

Step 2: Reach 

Next, identify where you can find your customer segment at every stage of their journey. This includes exploring channels like:

• Print / direct mail.
• Display advertising.
• Native ads.
• Organic search. 
• Paid search. 
• Video platforms.
• Social media. 
• Online communities. 
• AI (chatbots, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.).

Each search results page offers various types of content and opportunities, including links, images, videos, FAQs, and more.

Content marketing with SEO will open the door, but it will aim to maximize exposure across the page. 

Consider using SCAMPER to identify opportunities across different SERP features. 

At different stages of the customer journey, your audience may be found across various touchpoints. 

For example, you might initially capture attention with social media or native ads, but search could become more critical as the user moves down the funnel.

Document where your customer segments are found across each channel. 

This should be informed by the work you’ve done in Step 1.

Note: Each of these high-level platforms will need to be broken down into specifics. 

Social media is not just Instagram and TikTok. It also includes sites like Reddit and other online communities (Facebook groups, Discord servers, etc).

You can use Google here to help you identify where your people are hanging out and talking.

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Step 3: Engage

Once you know where your users are, think about how to engage them. 

Consider this across the marketing funnel, from awareness to engagement to persuasion. 

You need to get in front of your customers, grab their attention, and convince them that you’re the best option!

It’s also helpful to think about what you’re offering and where you can share it. 

For example, if you’re creating content around a common customer concern, how can you maximize its exposure? 

Should you focus on search, social media, or online communities?

Example

I am 50 this year and want to buy a pinball table as a gift for myself.  

It is a significant and expensive purchase, so I want to get it right. 

There are a handful of retailers in the UK and three or so big pinball manufacturers. 

My research started with a Google search, leading me to various discussion groups (on Reddit), and then leading me to various retailers. I am now in the middle of that process, in the consideration stage, mainly engaging on social media and email. 

My initial search was:

• Best pinball tables.

The results for this term include all manner of opportunities:

• Manufacturers.
• Pinball forums.
• Pinball groups on Reddit.
• Videos.
• SERP features.

The one thing missing here was content from any UK pinball retailers. 

There is a huge opportunity here for the UK pinball retailers to throw some content out there:

• Blog posts.
• Videos.
• Be active on discussion boards like Reddit.

As a pinball retailer, it would not be too difficult to map out the myriad jobs, goals, and problems of trying to buy a pinball table. 

They probably have those conversations daily with bewildered customers (just like me). 

This could then be used to drive traffic, social sign-ups, and email sign-ups and maximize visibility across search results. 

The same content could be promoted or repurposed on social media. 

Once you start to look at this from your user’s perspective, enlightened by the work you did with the value proposition, you will see that there are myriad opportunities in search and beyond. 

There is also a humanistic element to this. 

I’ve received some excellent advice and help from one of the UK retailers, and I will try to give them my business. 

The point is that your customers are people, and people buy from people.

Document all of this in the template and move on. 

Step 4: Persuade

The final step is to close the deal and get a sale. 

In the marketing and SEO fantasy world, a sale works like this:

• User searches.
• Clicks on your link.
• Browses website.
• Buys.

Sure, for tiny purchases, like drain unblockers or other low-stakes and low-value items, this may be true (and most of those kinds of business go to Amazon as it is so convenient). 

For most businesses, though, a purchase will happen after several engagements with the company across multiple platforms. 

It can be tempting to think of SEO as a primarily upper- and mid-funnel tactic.

However, lower-funnel content like case studies, testimonials, and reviews is also essential, and all of this can have a strong SEO component. 

I wrote an article about the power of case studies and testimonials for SEO nearly 10 years ago, but the advice is just as applicable today. 

As a customer, you may have concerns or objections before making a purchase. 

A case study can demonstrate how others have overcome these challenges, easing doubts and helping move the decision forward.

This is where multi-platform marketing comes in. 

A well-crafted case study can be:

• Promoted through native ads.
• Optimized for organic reach with dynamic Google search ads.
• Amplified via display marketing, email, social media, and remarketing. 

The goal is to reach a specific customer segment at a key stage in their purchase journey and persuade them to take action.

The steps to follow here should be to identify:

• Customer concerns.
• Relevant platforms.
• Tactics (i.e., remarketing).
• Sales conversion strategy.

For example, visiting a case study that features a 24-hour 10% off pop-up can often be the final push a customer needs to make a purchase.

Document the above in the template and move on. 

Step 5: Repeat 

For many businesses, real profits come from increasing customer lifetime value, which requires a solid strategy – often driven by marketing.

In some cases, the initial sale may be at a loss, with profitability coming from repeat purchases. 

Returning to the pinball example, this could include spare parts, maintenance products, services, trades, and additional purchases.

At this stage, it’s crucial to identify all possible ways to reach customers and upsell effectively.

At a minimum, this will likely involve:

• Content marketing.
• Social media.
• SEO.
• Email marketing.

Smart marketing maximizes exposure by repurposing content across multiple platforms, ensuring efficiency and reach.

SEO in 2025: An integrated marketing approach wins

Modern marketing is multichannel. Successful SEO is informed by credible brand exposure in multiple places. 

The best approach for SEO in 2025 and beyond is to carefully integrate SEO into your marketing plan. 

This approach will allow you to:

• Reach cold prospects.
• Engage them where they are present.
• Nurture them into customers.
• Build an engaged customer base that buys time and time again. 

Then, be sure to establish clear SEO goals and KPIs to track and measure your success and iterate across other customer segments.