At BrightonSEO San Diego 2025, I explored how the world of search is evolving — and why brands must shift from chasing visibility alone to becoming the preferred choice in an age where search is everywhere.

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The Changing Search Landscape

For years, search was defined by blue links on Google. But that’s no longer the case. Search has become a behaviour, not just a platform. People now search wherever culture lives — TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, and even through AI and LLMs like ChatGPT.

• 76% of consumers have used social media to discover products, brands, and experiences.
• 89% of buyers research across at least three platforms before making a purchase.
• AI isn’t replacing Google; it’s expanding the ways people discover brands.

In this new landscape, presence alone is not enough. Visibility must translate into preference.

From Presence to Preference

Preference is where the true competitive advantage lies. It’s built on:

• Authority – being recognised as trustworthy.
• Relevance – showing up in the right cultural and contextual spaces.
• Trust – creating consistent, meaningful signals across channels.

To win, brands must unify social, brand, and search strategies into what we call the Search Everywhere® framework.

Breaking Down Silos

In 2025, digital silos are a problem. PR, SEO, and social media often operate independently. But today’s discoverability engine requires a connected approach:

• Brand-led narratives set the foundation.
• Search foundations ensure discoverability.
• Social distribution fuels cultural relevance and amplification.

When teams align around shared goals and KPIs, their impact compounds.

Case Study: BullyBillows

BullyBillows, a dog accessories brand, faced falling non-brand keyword searches like dog harness and dog collar. Instead of asking “are searches reducing?”, we asked “where are they migrating?”.

The answer: discovery was shifting into social search activity. By adopting a social-first content strategy and aligning it with new SEO landing pages, BullyBillows achieved:

• 139% growth in organic revenue (2025 to date).
• 65% increase in brand searches.
• 195% increase in brand + key term searches.

We also spotted a cultural trend around AirTag dog collars and helped the brand lean into it — creating both a product and a discoverability strategy that bridged social, search, and creator partnerships.

Future-Proofing Brand Discovery

Looking ahead, digital teams should stop chasing visibility as the end goal. Instead, they must ask:

• How do we make more people search for our brand?
• How do we get discovered even when people aren’t searching for us directly?
• How do we migrate presence into preference?

The answer lies in unified, cross-channel strategies where brand = preference, search = presence + preference, and social = cultural relevance and distribution.

Final Thought

As I said in my talk:

“You have always borrowed visibility… Being the preference is truly earned and is often retained.”

Search is everywhere. But the brands that will win are those that stop celebrating visibility — and start building preference.

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