Why You Should Rev Up Your Search Engine Use

by Stacy Williams

Oct 03, 2001

The economic downturn has finally affected your company, and your marketing budget has been cut. But you're still being charged with driving qualified traffic to your Web site and building sales. How do you grow a business--or perhaps just survive a slump--without breaking the bank?

Savvy marketers increasingly are answering this question by turning to search engine optimization (SEO). That is, they're optimizing their sites for the search engines in order to rank higher, be more visible and generate more traffic.

But still, SEO isn't exactly in widespread use. So, you may be asking yourself, why should we care about getting traffic from search engines?

Just the facts, ma'am: More than 80 percent of Web users find the sites they're looking for by using a search engine, according to both Forrester Research and Georgia Tech's GVU Center User Surveys. Every single day, 57 percent of Web users search the Internet, making search the second most popular Internet activity after e-mail (according to Statistical Research, Inc.). Clearly, the old "fish where the fish are" analogy holds true here.

Effectiveness: Search listings outscore banner and tile ads by more than two to one on measures including awareness, likelihood to click-on, and overall opinion, in a recent study by NPD Group. The survey also found that consumers are five times more likely to purchase your products after seeing search listings versus banners. Search listings just plain work.

Bull's-eye: Search engines drive extremely targeted traffic. Think about it: The visitor who finds your site through a search engine is looking for exactly what you're selling. You can't find a much warmer prospect than that.

Ante up: SEO is one of the least expensive methods of driving traffic to a site. If you've got the time, you can learn a lot of the tricks of the trade and do it yourself for next to nothing. If you hire a company to do the work for you, the pricing can range, but you can often get results by paying a few thousand dollars upfront and a few hundred a month--a pittance compared to traditional media costs.

Despite the compelling arguments above, proportionately speaking, there are still relatively few companies taking advantage of search engine optimization today. It may be that they don't understand it, and therefore, tend to be intimidated by it. Like most things in life, once you dive into SEO, it really isn't that difficult. There's a wealth of information available, of all places, on the Web. And a good SEO provider can help to educate you and explain what they're doing in non-technical language.

Your goal should be to get your Web site ranked in the top 30 listings on as many of the most-used search engines as possible, using as many relevant search terms as you can. I use the "top 30" metric because, according to industry leader Search Engine Watch, only 7 percent of searchers will go beyond the third page of listings. So if you're not in the top 30, you may as well not be there at all.

Have I convinced you yet to start performing SEO proactively? If you haven't done so recently, you may want to run a few searches, using search terms you think your prospects may type into a search engine. See who's listed toward the top. Where is your company ranked? It may be that your competitors are already using SEO to boost their rankings. Or it may very well be that they aren't and that you can get a jump on them by doing so.

I'll be bringing you information about optimizing your site for the search engines in the coming weeks. Look for my articles on SEO Today. I'll be describing the different types of search engines (including directories, pay-per-clicks and meta engines) and tactics you can use to target each of them. Next time, we'll discuss true, crawler-based search engines and how to determine the ideal search terms for your site.

About the Author:

Stacy Williams is founder and president of Prominent Placement, Inc., which offers strategic search engine optimization to its clients. Prior to founding Prominent Placement, Stacy spent nine years at the progressive advertising agency Kilgannon McReynolds, Inc., most recently as Director of Marketing and Internet Marketing Guru.

With an extensive background in Internet marketing, Stacy offers her clients cutting edge solutions that are always rooted in sound marketing strategy.