How Search Fits Into the Bigger Picture of Customer Experience

Ask any CMO where the customer experience begins, and you’ll hear answers like the homepage of the website, a sales call or maybe even a product trial.

But, in reality, much of the customer experience begins long before: in the search results.

Many CMOs today view SEO as a traffic driver. And while traffic from the organic search channel is undeniably valuable, it’s more than that.

Search is often the first and most influential customer touchpoint. And today, modern SEO plays a much broader role — shaping the experience, trust and perception that guide a customer’s journey from discovery to decision.

In this article, I’ll explore how search impacts the customer journey, how SEO supports customer experience (CX) goals like trust and ease, and what CMOs can do to align their search strategy with today’s experience-driven expectations.

• The Customer Journey Starts with Search
  • Awareness Phase: Helping People Find You Easily and Confidently
  • Consideration Phase: Making Evaluation Simple, Trustworthy and Friction-Free
  • Decision Phase: Reinforcing Trust and Reducing Risk
• SEO Is the Engine Behind a Seamless Customer Experience
• Final Thoughts
• Quick Solutions
• FAQ: How do I optimize my SEO program effectively across the buyer’s journey to drive customer conversions?
• About Us

The Customer Journey Starts with Search

Search is how customers find you, and it’s also one of the first ways they experience your brand.

Increasingly, search is the main place where customers decide whether you’re worth their time. Sixty-five percent say search is their most-used research touchpoint.

In fact, at every stage of the buyer journey, from brand discovery to conversion, SEO plays a central role.

That means every part of your SEO program, from keyword research to technical execution, is shaping how people perceive and interact with your brand.

How do I create content that helps people find us quickly and trust what they see?

I’ve written in the past how SEO supports each phase of the customer journey. Let’s go over that now:

Awareness Phase: Helping People Find You Easily and Confidently

Here is where SEO helps customers in the awareness phase:

• Keyword research: SEO understands the terms real customers use and the intent behind them to create content that’s relevant and helpful.
• Competitor and SERP research: Uncovers what else your customers are discovering when they search, so you can stand out.
• Whole-SERP visibility: Optimizing for your presence across the search results increases exposure and builds credibility early. Being present across multiple result types helps shape perception.

CX connection: Meeting people where they are with useful, findable content enhances their early brand perception and saves them time.

Consideration Phase: Making Evaluation Simple, Trustworthy and Friction-Free

When customers are in the consideration phase, SEO steps in to assist with:

• Optimized listings: SEO tactics improve visibility and clarity in the SERP, helping users choose you.
• Content mapping: Aligning SEO content to customer intent at every stage gives users exactly what they need.
• Site architecture: SEO siloing guides users smoothly through your site with thoughtful navigation and internal linking that mirrors their decision flow.

CX connection: Clear, accessible, relevant content earns trust and removes effort from the evaluation process.

How do I ensure our website makes it easy for people to research and compare us to others?

Decision Phase: Reinforcing Trust and Reducing Risk

Finally, as people are at the decision moment, SEO can assist by guiding brands in the following areas:

• Conversion-optimized pages: Build pages that make decision-making easier, like comparison tools, product details, FAQs or CTAs.
• Customer reviews: Include real feedback and third-party validation across your site and review platforms.
• Reputation monitoring: Track and improve your presence in places like Google Reviews, Reddit or the Better Business Bureau.

CX connection: At this stage, customers want reassurance. While SEO’s main goal is to drive traffic, being able to convert that traffic makes SEO costs more sustainable and ensures you make the most of that traffic.

When you view SEO as a means to support the customer experience, it becomes a system for meeting customer needs at every stage of the journey.

How can I integrate SEO strategies into the customer journey effectively?

SEO Is the Engine Behind a Seamless Customer Experience

Customers today want support from brands as they embark on their journey. But that’s not enough.

Customers also want you to deliver excellent digital experiences — fast, helpful and low-friction. And often, it’s your SEO program that makes that possible.

That’s why technical SEO is so critical to experience. It ensures your site is fast, mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. It reduces friction for search engines and your customers.

A modern SEO strategy supports customer experience in many ways. Here are five:

1. Technical SEO improves performance behind the scenes. Clean site structure, crawlability, responsive design and fast page load times make every interaction smoother on any device.

2. SEO program content meets your customers with the right message at the right moment. It anticipates intent, answers questions and reduces effort during the decision process.

And the impact is measurable, according to Think with Google:

• 81% of consumers buy from brands that provide information that empowers their purchase decisions.
• More than 70% say relevant and trustworthy content increases their preference for a brand.

3. SERP ecosystem visibility expands your presence beyond your website. When your brand consistently shows up across the search results, like reviews, Reddit, industry directories or buyer guides, you help shape perception before the customer ever visits your homepage.

4. Structured data enhances the customer journey by improving how your content appears in search. It powers rich results, like FAQs, reviews, pricing and product details, giving customers more of what they need without extra clicks.

5. E-E-A-T alignment (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trust) reinforces your credibility. When your content is aligned with these principles, it not only ranks better but it feels more reliable, which builds confidence in your brand.

Each of these efforts improves both performance and perception. They make your content easier to find, faster to engage with and more trustworthy to act on, making SEO into a scalable, repeatable way to deliver customer satisfaction at every touchpoint.

Final Thoughts

SEO is about relevance, trust and ease of experience. It builds credibility early, removes friction throughout the journey and helps customers make confident decisions.

Whether someone is discovering your company for the first time, comparing you to the competitors or moving around your website, their experience is shaped in some way by your SEO program.

That’s why the most effective CMOs are aligning SEO with their broader customer experience strategy.

They’re not solely focused on rankings, but looking at the bigger picture of how SEO makes the customer journey easier, faster and more helpful.

How much of your customer experience is already being shaped in the search results?

Learn how we can help you optimize your SEO strategy to align with the buyer’s journey and drive measurable results.

Build Your SEO to Support the Customer Journey

Quick Solutions

• FAQ: How do I optimize my SEO program effectively across the buyer’s journey to drive customer conversions?
• How do I create content that helps people find us quickly and trust what they see?
• How do I ensure our website makes it easy for people to research and compare us to?
• How can I integrate SEO strategies into the customer journey effectively?

FAQ: How do I optimize my SEO program effectively across the buyer’s journey to drive customer conversions?

SEO aligns across the buyer’s journey during distinct stages of the customer decision-making process. You can tailor your SEO strategies to meet the needs of users at each stage.

For example, during the awareness stage, focus on creating content that addresses broad, informational queries. Create content that captures the general interests and problems of your target audience.

This content should be relevant to target keywords and intent of the query, and designed to establish your brand as a helpful resource.

As users move into the consideration stage, the content should shift towards providing in-depth, comparative content that helps potential customers evaluate their options.

This could include things like detailed guides, comparison charts or case studies that highlight the benefits of your offerings.

In the decision stage, the SEO strategy should emphasize conversion-focused content that incorporates landing pages, optimized product or service pages and trust signals like reviews and secure checkout processes.

When you align your SEO program to support the buyer’s journey, you can create an experience that guides people from initial interest to final purchase.

23-Step Action Plan for Aligning SEO with the Buying Journey

Here are steps you can take to help align your SEO program to support the buyer’s journey:

1. Identify the key stages of the buyer’s journey that are relevant to your business.
2. Conduct keyword research to understand the queries people use in each stage.
3. Create content that addresses informational queries during the awareness stage.
4. Develop detailed, comparative content for the consideration stage.
5. Optimize landing pages, product and service pages and calls-to-action for the decision stage.
6. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly for customers on the go.
7. Use structured data to enhance search engine visibility and engagement.
8. Monitor user behavior and adjust the content based on key findings from analytics.
9. Incorporate website user and customer feedback to refine your content strategy.
10. Build a content calendar to maintain consistent publishing so that you have a library of content for each stage.
11. Optimize meta titles and descriptions for clarity and relevance for search engines.
12. Use internal linking to guide users through the buyer’s journey, so your site is a complete resource at every stage.
13. Implement HTTPS for secure transactions — a non-negotiable.
14. Highlight customer reviews and testimonials on product pages for social proof.
15. Use A/B testing to refine calls-to-action and page layouts to boost conversions.
16. Collaborate with marketing and sales teams to align messaging across the buying journey.
17. Monitor competitor strategies to identify opportunities where you can outshine them.
18. Regularly update content to keep it relevant and accurate.
19. Use social media to promote content to your target audience and drive more traffic.
20. Track the performance of your SEO efforts using analytics tools.
21. Adjust your strategy based on changes in search engine algorithms.
22. Train teams throughout the business on the latest SEO best practices, so everyone is aligned.
23. Conduct regular audits to identify and fix technical SEO issues, so user experience stays high.

About Us

Bruce Clay Inc. is a leader in search engine optimization, offering innovative solutions to help businesses achieve their digital marketing goals. With decades of experience, we specialize in creating strategies that enhance visibility, drive traffic and increase conversions. Learn more about our services and success stories by visiting our About Us page.

Bruce Clay is founder and president of Bruce Clay Inc., a global digital marketing firm providing search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media marketing, SEO-friendly web architecture, and SEO tools and education. Connect with him on LinkedIn or through the BruceClay.com website.

See Bruce's author page for links to connect on social media.