TL;DR
- SEO has evolved from a standalone function into part of a larger marketing acquisition ecosystem
- TikTok creator collaborations can drive massive organic traffic gains
- Brand building and positioning now matter more than traditional ranking optimization
About the Speaker
Nadya Khoja – Head of Organic Acquisition, Receptive Inc.
An experienced practitioner who’s built organic growth strategies across multiple companies, specializing in integrated marketing approaches that combine rather than separate paid and organic channels.
The Most Striking Discovery: The “Borg Method”
In 2023, when university students were trending “borg” (enormous water bottles mixed with alcohol), Nadya’s team knocked up an article about borg recipes in just 10 minutes.
The results were absolutely brilliant:
- 4,000 sessions per day from that single piece
- Scaled to 40,000 monthly sessions
- Here’s the thing: keyword tools initially showed zero search volume, but later revealed 200,000 people were actively searching for this content
This completely upended conventional wisdom about content planning and keyword research. Sometimes the best opportunities are right under our noses.
The Consumer Journey Has Gone Full Chaos
Nadya broke down how discovery and purchasing patterns have evolved since the “good old days” of 2015:
Traditional SEO Journey (2015) Google search → informational article → product introduction → conversion
Today’s Consumer Journey TikTok → podcast → Reddit → Facebook ad → Google search → ChatGPT → review sites → decision
The order varies by person and is completely non-linear. The key insight? Google has shifted from a discovery platform to a navigation and transaction hub. People aren’t starting their journeys there anymore—they’re finishing them there.
Game-Changing Strategies and Results
TikTok Creator Collaboration Case Study
Working with creator Morgan Roos delivered impressive results:
- Organic conversion improved from 22% to 10%
- Single creator drove approximately 50% of total traffic
- Acquisition costs dropped significantly compared to traditional advertising
Building Authority from Micro-Niches
- Start with ultra-niche keywords where competition is minimal
- Build authority across multiple small keywords first
- Use that foundation to eventually dominate larger terms
Industry Impact and Future Outlook
LLMs, influencer marketing, and social media have become the primary discovery channels, making brand awareness a prerequisite for SEO success. This shift demands moving beyond traditional keyword research toward comprehensive brand authority building across all touchpoints.
The key insight from Nadya’s approach is that the fundamental ranking factors remain important, but the methods for achieving them have evolved significantly.
Personal Takeaways
What particularly struck me about this session was the sheer volume of testing and hypothesis-driven thinking. The analytical approach to understanding consumer psychology felt genuinely fresh—Nadya wasn’t just chucking tactics about, but actually studying how people think and make decisions, then building marketing around that reality rather than how we’d prefer people to behave.
The 10-minute article generating 40,000 monthly sessions is a brilliant example of how timing and relevance can trump elaborate content strategies. It reinforced the importance of staying nimble and recognising opportunities as they emerge, rather than getting stuck in rigid planning cycles.
Her framework for integrating paid and organic efforts also provided valuable insights into how different marketing elements can amplify each other when working in tandem rather than in silos.
Related Resources
Written by Ayaka Uchida
CEO, A-Digital Works
This report covers Nadya Khoja’s session “The marketing trifecta: how to balance earned, owned and paid and dominate brand growth” at brightonSEO San Diego, September 24, 2025.
