Why is search engine marketing important?

Here are compelling reasons why you should include search engine marketing in your online marketing mix and the very real competitive advantage it can give your business...

1 Numerous surveys have shown that search engines and directories are the most popular method used to find websites. More than 80% of Internet users rely on search engines & directories as their preferred method for locating websites. (Source: GVU 10th WWW User Survey)

2 The majority of Web users search the web every day (57%). The only thing done online more often than using search engines is checking email - 81% check email every day. (Source: Statistical Research Inc Feb 2000)

3 There are more than 320 million searches are made through search engines and directories each day. Google alone had over 55 billion searches during 2002. The exponential growth of the Web means there are now billions of web pages and consequently this has increased users reliance on search engines as a way of locating information online.

4 Traffic search engines and directories deliver to websites is highly qualified because users are actively searching for the information. This is the major difference to traffic delivered by banner advertising.

5 There are 5 - 6 times more online purchases made from traffic delivered by search engines compared to banner advertising. The cost for online marketing campaigns using search engines is significantly lower than that for banner advertising. Not only are search engines highly efficient online marketing tools - they're also cost efficient.

6 Given this, it's not surprising that 66% of web marketers rated search engine marketing as the top method for driving traffic to their web sites. Second was email marketing (54%). (Source: American Direct Marketing Association survey - Aug 2000)

7 A report by Forrester Research stated "search engines reach valuable, motivated, and ready customers. To capitalize on search as a marketing tool, marketers should shift acquisition email and ad dollars to search..."(Source: Forrester Research - April 2002). And finally here is a very compelling reason to include search engine marketing from your online marketing mix...

8 CyberAtlas Research found that nearly 46% of marketers surveyed allocate less than 0.5% of their annual marketing budgets on search engine optimisation (SEO) services - but only 10 percent spend more than 25% of their marketing budgets on increasing their visibility on the Web. (Source: Search Engine Optimisation Strategies: A Marketer's Perspective -Aug 2001)

In other words, search engines may be the top method for finding sites on the Web, but only a small percentage of businesses have dedicated a portion of their marketing budget for building cohesive search engine marketing strategies.

This gap between recognition of the benefits of search engine marketing and actually doing it is your opportunity. By exploiting it you can give your business a competitive advantage.

Search Engine Marketing UK Resource Centre has been developed and marketed by SiteVisibility. A UK based search engine marketing company that serves the whole of the UK, including: London, Brighton, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Derby.