Search Engine Optimization Resources > A New Era for Search Marketing
A New Era for Search Marketing
Adjusting your strategies based on results is paramount to maintaining your presence and competitiveness. Each day you don’t follow these guidelines your qualified leads will be fewer, your return on investment will be lower and your competitors will gain at your expense.
One area you need to focus on is the difference between organic search and sponsored search and how high visibility is attained
A recent report by the Marketing Leadership Council (http://www.marketingleadershipcouncil.com) highlights the following statistics.
1. Well over half of Web site traffic comes from search engines.
2. The majority of business-to-business customers visit search engines for product or service.
3. 90% of users rarely look beyond the first three pages of search results.
4. Approximately 70% of buyers click on organic searches as opposed to sponsored or paid listings.
5. 81% of searches are made using Google (47%), Yahoo (21%) and MSN (13%).
6. Online advertising expenditures are expected to rise considerably over the next few years.
With these facts in mind it is obvious that your immediate goal is to strive to be in the top 30 search result listings. Anything less means the majority of your customers can’t even consider what you are selling.
Although Organic and Sponsored search results look similar, they are, in fact, very different. Research shows that both consumers and business buyers trust Organic search results more because they believe search engine computer driven algorithms verify the relevancy of the topic subject matter and are not driven by economics.
Quite simply, organic search results are calculated by algorithms which determine the relevant list of sites that closely match the keywords and phrases typed into the search box. Because algorithms are always moving and are different for each search engine you must monitor the activity and be prepared to adjust at any given time.
The actual keywords are definitely important but they are only one of many factors determining your ranking. The order, combination, position and place in which they appear also bear weight on rank. Next is the frequency in which they appear throughout the site is also relevant.
Other factors include:
1. The web site’s structure must be search engine friendly.
2. A well constructed site navigation for ease of indexing.
3. Use of static images as opposed to flash.
4. Proper title tags, meta description and meta keyword tags.
5. A linking strategy.
When all these factors are properly optimized the site ranking is well positioned for Organic search results. Of course, if they are not the reverse is inevitable.
Just remember, the rules are constantly changing and you must act accordingly to remain strong, competitive and profitable.
About the Author
Douglas Mackie http://www.fundamentallybusiness.com Internet marketing strategies, business planning, resources, web promotion and web development.
|