In the ever changing landscape of digital media, we have used an umbrella term to cover everything from website management, to marketing, to internal communications: “SEO”.

SEO, an acronym for Search Engine Optimization though it encompasses so much more than that. It is time to evolve to Digital Relations.

SEO has built quite a name for itself and while it may seem like it is cemented in place, right now, with the AI universe exploding within digital, we can expand beyond just Search Engine Optimization and move to a more sustainable moniker: Digital Relations.

While my career has been built in the paid media space, with its clearly defined rules and straightforward pay to play approach, my degree was focused on Public Relations, or earned media, which is what SEO is all about. More on media types.

There is a reason the Public Relations concentration I received was within the School of Journalism – it is the antithesis of what the reporters do, and much like how PR is meant to exploit the channels of the fourth estate, SEO is meant to exploit digital channels – all for good of course.

SEO, like PR, is about how your brand or website is positioned in your market. Where are you getting links from, what keywords are driving viable traffic, is all about positioning. Like PR you are hoping your audience’s view you in a way that enhances your business.

For decades, search has reigned supreme as the audience arbitrator, though in recent years the audience has become more fragmented. Apps were some of the first to command attention away from search and browsers. While a lot has happened since then, AI is now also taking a whole lot of attention, and naturally audiences are following. Soon, if not already, chatbots are impacting your website’s traffic. It is in this new landscape that we need to look beyond “search engine optimization” and look after our business’s digital relations across all of the audience caches.

As we look into the future we are seeing less web browsing, at least by humans, and the value of owning web property may diminish. If you are sitting at your website waiting for that search traffic, you may miss the AI highway that is passing by you just out of sight.