Grow Google. Diversify away from Google.

Posted on by Brendan

That’s the whole strategy in six words. Both for Google and for any business that depends on it.

A month after Google I/O and Google Marketing Live, the instinct inside most companies is to react to every announcement. A ton gets announced at I/O; it’s a conference, and not everything sticks. The part of this job I love is the opposite of reacting: studying, thinking critically, and sifting the noise down to what’s actually going on and what businesses should do about it.

Where I landed is Google’s strategy unfolding now and over the next few years, runs on three moves: Protecting/Defending, Diversifying, and Exploring. I believe enterprises should mirror this in ways unique to them.

Most leaders stop at the obvious points: Google has to protect its cash cow, and it’s caught in an innovator’s dilemma. Both are true. But the I/O story is evidence of more than defense; it’s evidence of mobilizing. Protecting has short-term implications. Exploring is the 1-2 year horizon and beyond. Diversifying spans both.

Protecting / defending. Google is holding onto ad monetization for two search intents as long as it can: navigational and transactional. If and when does that break? I don’t know but it only breaks when another platform offers something good enough to make people switch. On transactional, I’m with Paul Graham’s critique, but an irrelevant ad in image search isn’t enough to move people. On navigational, Kevin Indig’s piece on the brand tax nails it and this certainly can’t keep climbing and going on forever.

Diversifying. Expect Google to push advertisers toward YouTube as a Meta alternative, maybe Discover too. Wherever it can open ad inventory across its surfaces. In my opinion, these are always worth a look, some of these may be well-priced, effective placements.

Exploring. The bets that matter most for anyone with products: Universal Cart, the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), AI Mode, the new Conversational Attributes schema in Merchant Center, WebMCP, and information agents. (There’s plenty more but those six are the ones reshaping the path from discovery to checkout.) I call it exploring because nobody knows yet what gains traction or how Google monetizes it (i.e. traditional ads, enterprise contracts, subscriptions). What’s obvious: Google is chasing (1) one thing social platforms have more of – time spent and (2) Share or ecommerce search from Amazon. 

So what does this mean for organic search strategy and where you deploy resources? Four principles:

  1. Differentiation: what you invest in is genuinely different from the field of competition.
  2. Experimentation: or it’s a new bet with first-mover or arbitrage upside, on Google or somewhere else. You want a mix of the two.
  3. Prioritization: you can’t chase everything. Pick the right number of bets, and remember they’re bets. AI lets you take on more at higher quality; apply the learnings, then move to the next one.
  4. Cost-effectiveness: for the channel overall and for each strategic investment. What will it cost? How complex is it? How much upside toward the channel’s total upside? How much time should the team spend?

One more thing: organic search can’t run in a silo. On the strategic bets leaders have to get teams talking, finding shared goals and common ground, to drive 1+1=3 outcomes.

There’s AI-driven revenue to capture, and I haven’t been this excited to chase something since I found SEO on Twitter in 2012. Cheers to that.

Workplace Agents vs. Personal Apps

Posted on by Brendan

After two years away from the blog, I’m trying to build the writing habit back into my weekly routine. I am starting with two different product marketing announcements that caught my eye this week:

Taking these posts in isolation, one wants to be your office manager; the other wants to be your personal lifestyle assistant.

I’m particularly interested in Claude’s “quiet” social post. In a world of loud announcements, a low-stakes social post is a genius way to gather real-time signals. They aren’t just announcing a feature; they are testing a hypothesis: Do people actually want AI in their personal lives, or just their work?

The Takeaway: Don’t get distracted by the pace of launches. The real work is following customer behavior and having the guts to ship “quiet” experiments mapped to big bets to see what sticks, like these companies are doing themselves.

Strategic Framing in SEO

Posted on by Brendan

I find SEO both fun to do and powerful for a business. In order to have the freedom to do it inside organizations, SEO leaders need to understand how to strategically communicate to executives and how to mobilize a team to action on the strategy. Executives are important because they’re deciding on what to fund and put resources to. The team is insanely important because they’ll execute the action agenda that drives the results. I’ve seen leaders be really good at one and not the other in either direction which isn’t the end of the world but I find diminishes the fun and power of SEO. I am on a journey myself to get effective at both.

The thing on my mind lately is the strategic aspect. People can ask for more strategy when you drill into an action. The key thing I’ve learned is they aren’t trying to 100% stay clear of actions as they’ll ask about actions right after saying they want more strategy. They want the actions too but they need to be oriented to the actions with a framing of the strategy and the opportunities.

When you go into updates about your roadmap, lead with opportunity buckets and guiding policies of your strategy. Have a visual that will bring people along quickly. Show that every time. I’m sure questions about the actions will come after that.

You don’t need to be in a leadership position to practice this. Try it with your manager.

I’ll be over here working at this myself too.

Human-to-Human Commerce

Posted on by Brendan

Sometimes I get bogged down with the frustrations I have with Google. Exploiting its power and lack of transparency are a few that come to mind.

I was reminded of the positive interactions it can drive when looking for a newborn photographer one week after my son Jake was born. Lizzie asked me to look for someone, so I went to Google. Being a new dad of course I was on the go so I did a search for “newborn photographer near me” on my mobile. I checked out results in the Local Pack and did some price comparing. Once I got over the prices for newborn sessions, I finally sent a few options to Lizzie.

We reached out to and ended up going with Cara Soulia Photography. I was reminded of the human to human commerce that Google can help drive. We were new parents looking to document our sons first few days, and Cara runs a small photography business looking for customers.

As long as Google still drives connections like this, I will continue to be happy working on the internet.

While Cara was doing the shoot, I told her I worked in SEO and how I found her via Google. She then told me about how she started The Front Steps Project at the start of Covid and that resulted in a lot of backlinks from major publications and other photographers around the world. A truly great example of a serendipitous cause-marketing campaign that ended up driving high value links too.

Here are a few photos from the shoot:

The Front Steps Project
Jake and Me

New Standing Desk

Posted on by Brendan

Have you ever discovered and bought something via an IG ad? It happens maybe once per year in our house, and I always find the story entertaining. Of course there is retargeting after viewing something but I am more referring to the first view of the product being an ad itself. 

I pulled my back in early January and was quite uncomfortable sitting at my desk, so I was looking for standing options. I was considering the makeshift box strategy, because I didn’t want to overspend and have anything too clunky.

I stopped my search and continued just trying to stretch and soften my way to comfort while I still worked sitting down. 

Then, I was hit with an ad on IG for Harmoni standing desk. The ergonomics looked solid and it was something I could disassemble easily if needed. A few other tactics I believe they did well: 

  • One follow up ad provided an additional $20 off. 
  • I lost the code for the discount so I had to DM Harmoni and they still provided it. 
  • Videos showed a few different takes (1) working at the desk (2) setting up a home office with the desk.
  • The landing page doesn’t just sell a standing desk. It sells a healthier way to work, more creativity, and more productivity. 

So this is how I am working these days. The desk has definitely provided a more optimal way for me to work. Being on my feet the first 2-3 three days took some getting used to but right now I am in a great groove.

harmoni standing desk
My Standing Desk Setup