Ask any old school SEO agency and they will tell you how easy it was back in the day to get in front of people looking for your product or service. You knew everyone was searching on Google or Yahoo for the most part so it was easy to focus there. You could stuff your website full of keywords, comment on blogs with a backlink, and guest post until you were blue in the face–and your website would probably start ranking well in search engines.

Today, consumers’ attention is pulled in millions of directions, with billions of options and thousands of points of influence. What does this do to their search patterns? It makes being everywhere as important as ever.

Google still remains the dominant overall search engine, however depending on who your target audience is and what they are searching for, Google might not be their first choice. YouTube commands information searches and Amazon helps millions of customers find half a billion of products every year.

• People visit YouTube to learn how to do things, or how others did it.
• People visit Amazon to compare and price shop products.
• Many people visit Bing by default when they are on an Android phone or other Microsoft device.

Traditional SEO focuses on Google and Bing to get ranked higher in search engines, and this still remains the core of any SEO plan. But these other platforms have become an integral part of placing your brand in front of people looking to buy products and services that you have to offer.