With the rise of social media marketing, and content marketing, it appears that search engine marketing has been pushed to one side. Here at Keyword Eye, we’re struggling to get our heads around this, especially considering that search engines get more traffic than any other sites on the internet, yes even more than Facebook!
In this blog post we’re going to present seven reasons why search engine marketing shouldn’t be forgotten about, and why it definitely still rocks!
1. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine
That’s a pretty huge percentage! If you push SEO to one side whilst you focus on your other marketing then you risk falling off the search engine radars and missing out on the 93% of online experiences that in fact begin with a list of search results generated by SEO keywords. The easiest way to market your business is to place yourself in front of your users, so it would be foolish not to try your best to appear prominently on search engines.
2. Search is the no.1 driver of traffic to content sites, beating social media by more than 300%
This statistic shows that search engine marketing is even more effective than social media, 3x more effective in fact! As the number one driver of traffic to content sites, search engine marketing is an invaluable tool in generating custom for online businesses. Although social media is a great tool for generating business too, it cannot solely be relied on for the simple reason that it is not your platform. For example, if Facebook decided tomorrow that no one was allowed to promote on their site anymore, could your business still survive?
3. By 2018, mobile search spending will reach $28.41 billion, or 85.9% of the U.S. Digital search advertising market.
Each year, the smartest of companies are putting more and more money towards search engine marketing because they are seeing the results. As this statistic suggests, by 2018 85.9% of the U.S Digital search advertising market with be spent on mobile searching, so perhaps it’s time to ask yourself if you spend enough on search engine marketing, particularly aimed at mobile users, because if it works for everyone else, it can certainly work for you too.
4. 50% of all mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results, and 61% of those searches result in a purchase.
This stat heavily backs up what was said in the point above: mobile searches often lead to purchases, (or, from a business point of view, revenue). Search engine marketing for mobile is extremely important as it is smartphone shopping is becoming more and more prominent. Recent studies show that 46% of shoppers exclusively use their mobile device to conduct pre-purchase research.
5. Google Ads account for 64.6% of clicks for high commercial intent keyword searches.
Using Google AdWords ensures that your ad will appear above the organic search results (if your keywords match what the user has typed in the search engine), this puts you in the best possible place to be found by users. The use of Google Adwords has also been proven to improve general SEO by generating a higher click through rate for your site. Oh! And another great thing about Google Ads is that they are completely measurable, so you can pinpoint what keywords work best for you.
6. The first page of searches on Google receive 91.5% of Google’s traffic
Google is the most visited website in the world, so if you feature on the first page of this search engine then you will receive an abundance of traffic that you won’t get anywhere else. The only way to move towards the first page of searches on Google is to work hard on optimizing your SEO. Improving your SEO is harder than it seems, particularly with Google’s algorithms changing all the time. Luckily, there’s lots of great guides out there that explain and assist with SEO, check this one out by Moz, here.
7. 49% of consumers in the U.K. leverage organic search as the main point of entry to e-commerce shopping sites
Yet only 35% of online retailers in the U.K. believe consumers find their website through the organic channel! This assumption needs to change given the above stat shows almost half of consumers use search engines. If you don’t own an e-commerce shopping site, then this statistic won’t necessarily apply to you, but it’s a great idea to find out the percentage of consumers or clients in your industry that use search engines to find sites.
So, now that we’ve convinced you of how much search engine marketing still absolutely rocks why not brush up on your search engine optimization by reading our previous post, ‘What are the most important search engine ranking features today?’
Thanks for reading!