GMChost.com Webmaster Guide

Search Engine Marketing: Optional or Essential?

If your search engine marketing efforts have been put on hold or on the backburner, you may want to reconsider your priorities. Mounting evidence points to the rapidly growing importance of search engines to online businesses:

• A study from IMT Strategies professes that a company's presence within search properties is the most important factor in maintaining high brand awareness -- more so than print, radio, or TV advertising (Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, January 2001).

• NPD Group study shows search engine positions are 2 to 3 times more effective in generating sales than banner ads (http://www.overture.com/d/about/advertisers/slab.jhtml).

• A Direct Marketing Association study found that search engine optimization was the top method cited by Web site marketers to drive traffic to their sites (66%), followed by email marketing (54%)

• Iconocast reported that 81 percent of U.K. users find Web sites through search engines (Source: June 2000, Forrester Research Inc., "UK Internet User Monitor.")

• The Graphics, Visualization & Usability Center (GVU) 10th User Survey reported that 84.8 percent of respondents found out about Web pages from search engines.

• 92% of online consumers use search engines to shop and/or purchase online according to a report published by the NPD Group.

• A study conducted by IMT Strategies found that search engines are the #1 way (46%) people find Web sites. Random surfing and word-of-mouth ranked second (20% each).

• Search engines rank among the busiest and most popular sites on the Web -- see any RelevantKnowledge or MediaMetrix report.

• Jupiter Research, in a March, 2001 report, notes that Internet users ranked Internet searching as their most important online activity, awarding it a 9.1 on a 10-point scale. The next most important activity ranked only 6.3.

• According to a survey of Web marketers by WebCMO, search engine marketing was rated as the most effective means of promoting a Web site beating banner advertising, e-mail, and off-line promotion.

• An NPD Group study showed that more than twice as many respondents recognized companies listed in the top three search positions than those recognizing companies featured in banners ads.

Regardless of how many studies prove the importance of search engine marketing, the real question is whether it is cost effective and if so, how do you apply it to your Web site?

Here's a quote we received last month from Ken Calhoun of DayTrading-university.com that answers both questions:

Most search engine users do not scroll past the first few pages of search engine results. A site must appear near the top to be found.