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Why
focus on achieving a high ranking on search engines? Because 85 percent of all website traffic is generated by search engines and it has become the second most preferred online activity after email. The majority of all web traffic is driven by the three major commercial search engines – Google, Yahoo, and MSN (AOL’s search engine uses Google for its search results). In fact, these three account for about 80-90 percent of all search traffic. Various studies depict that most people prefer to click on organic search results rather than sponsored results by a very wide margin. And among the organic search or “natural” results, 90 percent don’t go beyond the first 30 results. |
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This
doesn’t mean that ads placed with search engine programs are
useless; neither does this mean that this should be the only strategy
of a company’s website marketing campaign. Search engine users
tend to trust organic results more than paid ads, which means that
they’re more likely to click on them – and more likely
to convert. A good position in the search engines can’t be
bought in the same way as a banner ad or a sponsored listing. |
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| Studies have shown that most search engine users don’t click past the first three pages of search results; many don’t even click past the first page if they find what they’re looking for. What does this mean for you? For starters, it doesn’t matter how many search engines crawl your site; if it isn’t listed in the first three pages, it might as well be invisible. Obviously, getting on the first page is mandatory and getting amongst the top three results is even better. Even if you are not doing SEO for your website, in all probability your competitors are. In that case, your rivals are getting all the traffic that you should be getting. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Search
engine optimization and search engine marketing in general, can
serve additional purposes. It can generate sales, both online and
offline. It can convince search engine users to take the actions
you desire, such as signing up for newsletter, downloading white
papers, and so on. Also, a higher ranking in search engine contributes
to superior brand awareness and over a period of time, brand recall
as well. |
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When
done properly, search engine optimization can bring people to your
site looking for what you are offering. Most consumers are tired
of being flooded with advertising everywhere they look, but are
still receptive to the higher placed results in search engines.
You might think that a search engine should be able to give you
a good place in its results without you having to do anything special
to your website. It’s true that search engines are constantly
working on their technology to make sure they deliver the most relevant
results, but there will always be a limit to how well they can operate.
Also, the way you have set up your site (title tags, headers, Meta
tags, link text, and so on) may end up hiding your site too deep
in the search results, where hardly anybody looks. Even worse, you
might not be targeting relevant keywords. A professional
SEO operation can help you target the right keywords and make sure
users actually see you – and that the ones that see you are
really looking for what you have to offer. |
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The
truth is, search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization’s
success. Targeted visitors to a website can provide publicity, revenue,
and exposure like no other form of marketing. Given this, investing
in SEO, either through a professional, or spending time doing it
yourself, can provide exceptional ROI. |
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Search
engine optimization these days is just one of the many flavours
of search engine marketing. Nowadays, search engine marketing can
include SEO, pay-per-click, paid inclusion, search generated contextual
ads, and pay-per-call. |
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You
may have heard of all the services mentioned above. But search engines
are constantly changing as they are forced to keep pace with the
ever evolving internet. As a consequence, not only do their listings
change, but they frequently come up with ideas for new services
to offer. Some of these include new advertising options. You might
not be aware of them, but it is the job of a SEO professional to
be on top of what the search engines are offering. |
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For
example, take pay-per-call. This fairly new service was started
by Ingenio very early in 2005; AOL began offering the service in
April 2005. Google began limited testing of a pay-per-call service
in late November. The premise behind pay-per-call is that some “high
touch” products and services benefit from personal contact.
Advertisers bid for phone call leads. With the
Google service, searchers see a phone icon next
to the company’s sponsored listing. A click on that icon lets
them enter a phone number and click a “Connect
for Free” button to be linked with the other party.
At this point, Google calls the search user, then dials the company
and connects the two. |
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As
you might expect, pay-per-call is more expensive than pay-per-click.
But there is a lot of room for growth here, and the potential that
companies who wouldn’t normally think of advertising with
search engines might consider it. It emphasizes local search and
is supposed to help small businesses. Some think that eBay might
start to offer pay-per-call advertising, thanks to its recent purchase
of Skype. |
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And
then there’s the behavioural approach. Behaviourally targeted
banners could be served after a search term is entered within one
hour to two days. As search engines like Google and Yahoo continues
to work on understanding online behavior better, it’s likely
that the search engine will come up with more different ways to
make advertising work smarter for consumers. |
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Which
of these approaches, or combination of approaches, would be best
for your business? It can be hard to figure out as there are frequent
changes. But this is the sort of thing that a SEO professional does
for you every day, for a large number of businesses, many of them
similar to yours. |
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