The search party has moved on. How to do Total Search right
Opinion – Media Essentials
Next, in our Media Essentials series aimed at marketers early in their careers, WPP Media’s head of organic performance explains that search hasn’t died; it’s expanded into what he calls Total Search.
As AI Overviews, social search, and LLMs collapse journeys from “find” to “decide”, brands need a more connected approach across SEO, paid search, social, PR, and commerce, as success will increasingly be measured by recommendation, not just clicks.
It’s tempting to think search is just another channel that needs a playbook. In reality, the job hasn’t changed; ensure consumers choose your brand, now and in the future. What has changed is where that choice gets made, increasingly before anyone reaches your site.
Through our Media Essentials programme – which we run with clients to help teams cut through complexity and make better decisions with confidence – we’re seeing a renewed focus on the core principles of media and marketing science as a manual for growth.
This article continues a 12‑part series aimed at marketers early in their careers. It draws on the core principles we see repeatedly prove their value in practice, especially when things feel uncertain.
The current wave of AI-powered search is a perfect example.
Google’s AI Overviews increasingly answer questions directly in the search results. Platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity allow people to ask detailed questions and receive curated recommendations, comparisons and next steps. Search is evolving from a system for finding information into a system for making decisions.
That shift matters because it creates a new reality of fewer clicks, more decision-making upstream, and less control over the moment when preferences are formed. If an AI-generated answer is incomplete, inaccurate, or simply favours a competitor, it can influence consumer choice at scale before a brand has had any opportunity to make its case.
The other important shift is that discovery no longer happens in one place. Consumers move seamlessly between platforms depending on their needs, their habits and where they are in the decision-making process.
TikTok and Instagram are often the starting points for inspiration and social proof, while YouTube and Reddit provide reassurance. Google remains dominant for navigation, local intent and transactions, but it’s increasingly layered with AI-generated answers and shopping modules.
Search hasn’t died; it’s expanded into something we call Total Search – more of an operating model joining up SEO, paid search, social, e‑commerce, affiliates and digital PR so the brand shows up credibly across the whole journey, not just at the last click.
Take a family booking a summer holiday. A consumer might start on TikTok “best Greek islands for kids”, use Google for quick comparisons (now summarised by AI), ask an LLM for tailored recommendations, validate on YouTube, then return to transact. The brands that win are present and trusted at multiple moments.
How to build Total Search advantage
1. Optimise for recommendation, not just rankings
In a world of generative search, the question shifts from “Where do we appear?” to “Do we get recommended?”
AI models don’t just rely on brand websites. They pull signals from publishers, reviews, forums, videos, affiliates and social platforms. Your visibility is only as strong as your wider digital footprint.
A good place to start is understanding how you appear today. Look at where AI models do, and don’t, mention your brand compared to competitors. Identify content gaps, review sentiment across forums and review sites, and understand which sources influence recommendations in your category. Often, the biggest opportunities sit outside your own channels.
2. Get the basics right
The rise of AI doesn’t make SEO less important. If anything, it makes the fundamentals matter more.
Search engines and AI models still favour content that is useful, current and easy to understand, and AI models rely on search results for grounding, so it’s critical for brands to take a safe, integrated approach to SEO & GEO; we refer to this as Generative & Search Optimisation (GSO).
Strong technical foundations, clear site structure, expert content and signals of trust all help improve both traditional search visibility and the likelihood of being surfaced within AI-generated answers.
The brands most likely to benefit from AI search aren’t necessarily doing something radically different. More often, they’re doing the fundamentals consistently well.
3. Stop treating paid and organic as separate disciplines
For years, SEO and paid search have often operated as parallel workstreams. That approach is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.
The strongest search strategies combine paid and organic data. Organic demand can help identify where paid investment will have the greatest impact. Paid search can fill visibility gaps where organic rankings are weaker. Landing page and content improvements can improve both organic performance and paid efficiency.
The opportunity isn’t simply better coordination, it’s making better decisions from a shared view of consumer demand.
4. Treat social as part of search
Many discovery journeys now start on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or Reddit rather than Google. People increasingly use these platforms to research products, compare options and gather recommendations, which means social content isn’t just there to entertain or engage; it’s becoming part of how brands get found.
Success comes from understanding how people search and talk about your category on each platform, then creating content that feels native to those environments. What works on TikTok won’t necessarily work on YouTube or Reddit. The goal isn’t to replicate the same message everywhere; it’s to show up in ways that feel useful and credible wherever people are looking.
Total Search is no longer a future trend; it’s the present operating reality of discoverability. In a landscape that will keep rearranging itself, leaders don’t need a new obsession with “new”. They need the discipline to integrate the system and do the fundamentals exceptionally well.
Richard George is the head of organic performance at WPP Media