Episode web page: https://tinyurl.com/45pcxtn9 How can businesses move beyond traditional SEO rankings to create a truly engaging and high-converting user experience? In this episode of Insights Unlocked, host Nathan Isaacs sits down with Georgia Tan, co-founder of Switch Key Digital, to discuss the future of search and the rise of Search Experience Optimization (SXO). Georgia shares how SXO integrates SEO, user experience (UX), and conversion rate optimization (CRO) to create a holistic search strategy that not only ranks well but also delivers meaningful engagement and conversions. As AI-driven search and multi-platform visibility become critical, Georgia explains why focusing on the user journey is the key to future-proofing your search strategy. She also walks us through real-world case studies, practical steps for businesses looking to shift toward SXO, and how to measure success beyond traditional keyword rankings. Tune in to learn: What Search Experience Optimization (SXO) is and how it differs from traditional SEO Why integrating UX and CRO is essential for long-term search success How AI-driven search and evolving user behaviors are shaping SEO in 2025 Actionable strategies to improve organic traffic and engagement Key metrics and a balanced scorecard approach to measure SXO success Real-world examples of businesses that boosted conversions with SXO 💡 "It's not just about ranking #1; it's about creating a seamless experience that keeps users engaged and converts them into loyal customers." – Georgia Tan Georgia Tan is the co-founder of Switch Key Digital and a seasoned expert in SEO, content strategy, and UX design. She developed the SXO framework to help businesses bridge the gap between search visibility and meaningful user engagement.
Chapter 1: What is Search Experience Optimization (SXO)?
Welcome back to the Insights Unlocked podcast. In this episode, we're diving into the future of SEO with Georgia Tan, co-founder of SwitchKey Digital. Georgia has pioneered Search Experience Optimization, or SXO, a smarter way to think about search by blending SEO, user experience, and conversion rate optimization.
If you're wondering how to boost organic traffic and keep users engaged, this one's for you. Enjoy the show.
Welcome to Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing, where we bring you candid conversations and stories with the thinkers, viewers, and builders behind some of the most successful digital products and experiences in the world, from concept to execution.
Welcome to the Insights Unlocked podcast. I'm Nathan Isaacs, senior manager for content production and user testing. And our guest today is Georgia Tan, co-founder of SwitchKey Digital. Georgia's journey through the world of digital content, from writing to strategy to SEO, has given her a unique perspective on the connection between search and user experience.
This experience has led her to develop the SXO framework, which we'll be discussing today. Georgia, you've had an impressive career in digital marketing and search strategy. Can you share a bit about your journey? What led you to co-found SwitchKey Digital? And how did you come to develop your approach to search experience optimization?
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Chapter 2: How did Georgia Tan develop the SXO framework?
Thanks, Nathan. My background is a blend of content and SEO. I started as a content writer and that really gave me a deep understanding of user needs and how to craft compelling narratives. And then I moved into content strategy and learned more about the impacts of content and aligning with business goals.
And then eventually moved fully into SEO, eventually becoming an SEO director and often collaborating with in-house teams. And I think this is where I really realized that true success for your digital strategy really requires a more holistic approach. And I realized that something was often missing with how people approached SEO, focusing on the user.
Like we could rank websites, but were they truly serving the people who visited them? This question really became even more pressing. And I started working with my co-founder, Alex, a UX designer. We really saw this disconnect
in the industry and that's what inspired us to create switchkey digital and develop the sxo or search experience optimization framework trying to bridge that gap between search visibility and user satisfaction
You describe SXO as a blend of SEO, UX, and CRO, focusing on both search engine rankings and user satisfaction. What inspired you to develop this approach? And how does it differ from traditional SEO strategies?
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Chapter 3: How does SXO differ from traditional SEO strategies?
Exactly. I'd say search experience optimization, SXO, is that intersection of SEO, UX, and CRO. Often, I think people think that SXO is only combining SEO and UX, but I think it's really important to also consider that it's including CRO because we're not just focusing, say, in SEO on ranking top of Google, but...
it's really important to consider what happens before the click as well as after the click, basically the entire user journey. And my inspiration for developing this approach really came from working on the ground with clients.
And we saw that simply reporting on like keyword rankings, traffic, even just conversions alone, it wasn't really telling the whole story and what stakeholders, especially, um, like business and product teams, what they really cared about was being able to attribute that revenue or the conversion goals, the engagement coming from organic search and see the impact on the bottom line.
And at the same time, I noticed a lot of overlap in the optimization work I was doing. So for example, I could be optimizing a landing page. And on that page, I wasn't just optimizing for SEO keywords. It's also really important that I would be incorporating CRO tactics and doing and refining the copywriting to encourage conversions.
Another great example I like to give is when you're researching keywords, you're actually really researching user behavior and the needs of your target audience, and it's became clear to me that these disciplines, SEO, UX, and CRO, were all interconnected and really contributing to the same goal, creating that valuable experience to drive results.
So I see SXO as formalizing that connection, providing that framework for a more holistic and effective approach to search. You'll see another great metaphor here. is if you think about building a house. We see traditional SEO focused a lot or talking about the technical optimization, the keywords, and that's the foundation, but that's not the whole house.
So I think SXO really builds on that foundation to incorporate user experience. and conversion rate optimization to create that complete experience to not only like, you know, attract people to come in to your house, but enjoy the experience and then want to stay and become loyal customers.
Right. In a way, it's building a house that they want to actually live in.
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Chapter 4: Why is user engagement crucial for future SEO success?
Exactly. Exactly.
Many experts predict that in 2025, SEO success will depend less on traditional rankings and more on user engagement, AI generated search experiences and multi-platform visibility. You argue that SXO by combining SEO, UX and CRO creates a more sustainable approach to search. How does SXO specifically help businesses increase organic traffic while adapting to these evolving search dynamics.
Completely agree about, yeah, the search landscape constantly evolving and that hasn't been any faster than what we've seen in the past year and 2025 being the year of agents and everything, even more so, I can imagine. And I agree that, you know, while rankings, that's still really important, but we see, yeah, user engagement, AI search,
And being across all and multi-platforms becoming so important for success for a lot of brands. And that's really why I think SXO is so crucial. We're focusing on that foundation of user centricity, which is really key to navigating these changes. And,
Yeah, we see that SXO isn't tied to any specific algorithm or tactic because it's about understanding the user intent across different platforms and what I call modals or formats and creating that valuable experience wherever your target audience is. I really think that's what really drives organic traffic and that's what is going to build
a strong brand sustainably, because if you can consistently deliver that value, going to differentiate yourself and have that clear brand identity and show your USPs, I think that's super important. Being able to show your customers why they should choose you over other competitors. So to give more of an example,
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Chapter 5: How can businesses adapt to AI-driven search changes?
Thinking about SXO and how that directly addresses user engagement, prioritizing UX, we see that when users have a positive experience on your website, then they're more likely to stay longer, explore more pages, and convert. And we know that search engines are actively seeking these positive user signals to really rank the pages as well.
And even with AI, we see the core principle really remains the same, providing that valuable content to answer user questions. And I see SXO helping businesses create that content that's going to be optimized for both search engines and for user needs, especially for Google, where we know that AI overviews still often rely heavily on traditional search rankings as a massive ranking factor.
So overall, I think that SXO really helps businesses create that cohesive brand experience to attract and engage users and to actually help drive really engaged traffic across multiple sources. So essentially I'd say it's, you know, how we can think about future proofing your search strategy. Then, you know, whatever Google or open AI or maybe Google,
deep learning throws our way, we'll be ready for it then.
Well, I'm creating my own AI. I'm just going to call it Deep Nate. I'm going to be rolling that out here next week or something like that. You know, foundationally, I understand what you're talking about. Can you just talk about how we roll that out into a business or how a business, you know, maybe one of your clients, how they're kind of implementing this right now out there in the real world?
I definitely agree. I think measuring is always such a complex and tricky area. And for SXO, I definitely think measurement is one of the most challenging but also rewarding parts. You can actually...
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Chapter 6: What metrics should be used to measure SXO success?
have that process down so what i usually refer to measuring sxo is what i call balanced scorecard approach where we can combine both yeah the quantitative and qualitative data to get that complete picture so you know we still track traditional seo metrics organic traffic and keyword rankings click-through rates these are like still really important indicators of visibility but i'd say these are just the starting point um
So then we also really include user engagement metrics for our client reporting, bounce rate, duration, pages per visit, scroll depth. These will really tell us how users are interacting with our website, what they engage with, where they're stumbling or how they're moving through the funnel. Then, of course... In that third part, conversion rates are, of course, really crucial.
So it's really important to make sure you're tracking that last part through the journey, how visitors then take their desired actions, whether that's signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, downloading a downloadable resource. And also really want to emphasize that I think qualitative data is just as important as the hard numbers.
So we've seen great results for clients who are willing to invest in gathering that first-party user feedback, which could be through a survey, could be through interviews with some customers or subject matter experts, could involve some usability testing, and then analyzing some of the customer support interactions. And in the case where it's difficult to get the first party data and
then also looking at social listening tools to gauge sentiment, how that changes over time can be really, really helpful. And the key here with SXO reporting, which we really emphasize for our clients, is more of the focus back on business outcomes, how we can basically attribute from your experience
from that search or from the first visit, how that can then lead to organically generated sales revenue and eventually customer lifetime value. It's a bit trickier and the return on investment.
For businesses that have relied on the traditional ways of doing SEO, what's the first step they should take to transition toward a more SXO-focused strategy?
Yeah, so in terms of the first step businesses should take, I think that really the biggest challenge for a lot of businesses, for a lot of marketers or SEOs is really that mindset shift, transitioning from thinking in traditional SEO to SXO.
and thinking about not only placing the value, I guess, on the keywords, on rankings, on backlink growth, to really focusing on the user and also really caring about what kind of traffic and really qualifying that a bit more to people who are really interested in your offer. So generally, I'd say the first step would be to ask yourself, do you know who your target audience is?
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Chapter 7: What first steps should businesses take towards SXO?
And then once you have got that down, then I think some actionable first steps would be thinking about how can you start some small-scale user research, like even just a few user interviews or a small survey, and looking at existing customer feedback, support tickets, social listening.
And then what I really encourage SEOs to do is to, you know, when you're doing your initial SEO audit, like in a discovery phase with a new client or a new brand, like do your UX and CRO audit or review as well. When you're on the website and ask yourself, like, is this easy to navigate? Is the content clear and engaging for your target personas? Do you see any usability issues or blockers?
Where are the stumbling blocks in that funnel? And that's where you can use tools like heat map, session recordings, and think really about how the UX and CRO elements work together. Like, for example, you might have copy on a page that works with search intent. and sounds great and check that it also encourages conversions, for example. And then my last point here would be,
It's okay to start small and iterate. It's okay, you can't do everything at once, so you really have to prioritize, which is the hard part. Focus on a few key areas for improvement that are backed by both your quantitative and qualitative data, and then you can continue to iterate based on more feedback. I want to emphasize that, yeah, SXO is a continuous process, not a one-time thing.
Well, something you were saying earlier there was talking about content audits. And I think we're just starting out the year. This is a kind of a good time to think about both of these things, right? Maybe a brand is out there right now and they're thinking about their content audit and what they want. what they have already or what they want to have as they think about the year ahead.
And also thinking about how they're going to be spending a lot of money on their SEO work or paid search work and stuff like that and kind of aligning all this together, right? It makes sense to kind of take a look and understand the user experience of all this sort of data at the same time. What do you think about that?
Yeah, I mean, I can't believe we're going to Feb already, but I think, yeah, especially with, I guess, the news recently, for example, like with HubSpot and what's going on with their own content strategy, I think now is a great time to, like, have a fresh pair of eyes to look at what's already on the website and check that it aligns with the target personas and the business goals this year.
Yeah, I guess you're right. I forgot about that. You know, you could have the number one page for washing machines, but if you're not in the washing machine business, what good is that doing you? Right?
Exactly. I think it's, yeah, not, I guess only straying as far as, you know, it's going to be relevant for your niche and also focus on things that are going to convert your business at the end of the day.
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