What is Search Everywhere Optimisation?

If your SEO strategy still begins and ends with Google, we need to talk.

Not, “let’s grab a coffee and chat” kind of way. In a “your building is on fire and you’re washing the dishes” kind of way.

Here’s the truth nobody else is going to say to your face: ranking on Google used to be the whole game. Optimise your site. Build some backlinks. Stuff in a few keywords. Hope for the best. Simpler times. Beautiful, really.

It’s 2026. The Google play now covers roughly a third of where people actually search for things.

A THIRD.

What happened while you were busy climbing Google

Let’s do some numbers, because the numbers are not being subtle about this.

Google’s US search market share dropped below 85% for the first time ever in early 2026. Gartner predicted traditional search volume would fall 25% by 2026 thanks to AI chatbots. And that prediction is tracking accurately. Oh, and 65% of Google searches now end without anyone clicking on anything. When AI Overviews appear? That figure climbs to 83%.

It’s worth reading that again. Eighty-three per cent.

People aren’t clicking. Google is just answering the question for them. On the page. Before your website gets a look in.

So yes, people are still searching. Enthusiastically, obsessively, constantly. They’re just doing it on ChatGPT, Perplexity, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and the AI tools baked into the software they already use. Google is one room in a building that now has six or seven. Your SEO strategy has been decorating one room and wondering why the neighbours can’t see it.

The industry has a name for this new direction: Search Everywhere Optimisation. It’s the biggest shift in digital marketing strategy since Facebook introduced ads in like, the 17th Century. And if you haven’t heard of it yet – well, now you have. You’re welcome.

“But Google still has 94% market share in Australia“

Yep. And that’s exactly why this matters more for Australian businesses than almost anyone else.

Australian businesses are more dependent on Google than almost any other Western market. Which means the structural changes happening inside Google search hit harder here. AI Overviews now appear in up to 39% of Australian searches – nearly triple the global rate. When those overviews show up, organic click-through rates drop by an average of 61%. Paid CTR drops 68%. These are big numbers.

Google isn’t sending people to your website anymore. It’s doing the homework itself.

Before you give up hope though, there are some positive numbers for the data people in the house : brands cited within AI Overviews earn 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks than those that aren’t. And the visitors who do click through convert at 23 times the rate of traditional search visitors.

The pool is smaller. The fish are bigger and tastier. Getting in the pool is the whole game now.

Still awake? There’s more…….

So where are people actually searching?

Glad you asked. Pull up a chair. Get comfy. More numbers incoming.

ChatGPT and Perplexity now hold 68% and a growing share of the AI chatbot market respectively. These tools don’t return a list of links – they compile info from the web and deliver a direct answer. If your content isn’t structured in a way that AI LLMs can actually understand and reference, you are invisible in this channel. Gone. A ghost. Getting recommended by an AI is roughly 30 times harder than appearing in Google’s local 3 Pack, according to SOCi’s research.

TikTok – 65% of Gen Z have used it as a search engine. In Australia, 38% of adults are on the platform, clocking 1.5 hours a day. It’s strongest for product discovery, restaurants, how-to content, and recommendations. And TikTok videos have been showing up in Google’s organic search results since 2021, with that integration deepening. Optimise for TikTok > benefit on Google. Two birds. One very short video.

Reddit – quietly, consistently, weirdly important. 80 million people now use Reddit search weekly, up 30% year on year. Yes, Reddit! Australian Reddit usage runs at three times the global average, making it the fifth most visited website in the country. Google actively pushes Reddit threads above branded content because users trust peer opinions. Someone searching “best web design agency Perth” is probably finding a Reddit thread before they find your homepage. Uncomfortable? Good. Now we can do something about it.

YouTube remains the second largest search engine in the world. For ‘how to’ content, tutorials, reviews, and explainers, it regularly outperforms Google for engagement and trust – and it feeds directly into AI Overviews that pull video sources.

What does a Search Everywhere strategy actually look like?

We’re not about to give up on Google. Far from it. But we do need to recognise that Google alone isn’t enough.

For Google and AI Overviews: Structured content with clear Q&A formatting. Use schema markup. Build genuine E-E-A-T signals – experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness – all the big words. Publish original research. Get mentioned on credible third party sites. This is what generates results in AI Overviews. Super important for Australian results.

For LLM search tools: These platforms favour well structured, expert authored content with clear attribution. Author bios. Published credentials. Consistent information across every platform. If an AI tool can verify who you are and confirm you know what you’re talking about, you get cited. If it can’t? Well, you wouldn’t shout out into the void would you? Half of all Australians are now using generative AI. Half. It’s a big deal for the new SEO.

For TikTok and YouTube: If you serve a consumer market or have anything visual to share, short form and long form video extend your reach to platforms where millions of people look for recommendations every day. It also feeds back into Google results. This is what working smarter looks like.

For Reddit and community platforms: You can’t control what people say about you on Reddit. You can, however, ensure you’re present in the conversations that matter – contributing value, answering questions, being a credible voice where your industry is discussed. These mentions carry weight with human searchers and with AI models making citation decisions.

Is your current SEO strategy keeping up?

Not gonna lie – if your SEO agency is still talking exclusively about Google rankings, keyword density, and backlink volume, they are optimising for one platform in a multi platform world. That’s a bit like perfecting your Yellow Pages ad in 2012.

The businesses gaining ground right now are treating search as a cross platform problem and building visibility wherever their audience is actually looking. Google, yes. But also AI citation, social discovery, community presence, and video.

The acronym is the same. The job behind it has changed entirely.

At Start, we’ve shifted our approach because the evidence demanded it. We think about where a client’s audience searches – not just where they rank. If you’d like to find out whether your current search strategy is covering the platforms that actually matter for your business, we’d love to chat.

If nothing else, you’ll get a good coffee out of it.