Monday, August 21, 2006
Why you Should Care About Search Engine Optimization
At Zunch, we naturally are big believers in search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is big and getting BIGGER every day. And SEO is important to the growth of your business. Which brings us to the question that may be on your mind…
“Why is SEO important to my business?”
Let’s start by noting that hardly a day goes by that Google, Yahoo or some other search engine isn’t in the news in print or on TV. Often that news is about the quest for top rankings, particularly on Google (In July, Google got 49% of all Internet searches).
All this interest is getting the attention of businesses, both large and small, and making them consider the importance of SEO to them. The smart businesses see the writing on the wall--
• 87% of commercial search engine traffic is organic. i.e., the natural listings on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
• There are over 175 million search engine users in the U.S. alone who conduct approximately 5.5 billion searches each month
• 90% of those doing searches do not go beyond on the first page of the search engine results page
• 85% of click-throughs to websites on Google are from organic results
Hey, that’s potentially a lot of business you’re missing out on if your website doesn’t make it onto the first page on the SERPS. Sure, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) can work, and we can help you with it, but obviously you really need to pay attention to your natural search engine rankings.
Not convinced? Consider also—
• PPC costs are rising, making it more prohibitively expensive to use
• If you advertise in e-zines, the more popular e-zines now cost thousands of dollars, $3000 on average, for a single ad
• If you buy e-mail lists, you already know that doing so costs thousands of dollars for a single run, with no guarantee of results
Compared to the cost of other means of advertising on the Net, SEO is fairly inexpensive and definitely cost effective. And the sooner you start the better, because getting a top ranking takes work and time.
SEO is a long-term commitment on your part. Once you make your way into the top rankings, you can hold your ranking and count on consistent traffic arriving from the SERPs. You can also better control your costs, as you won’t be affected by changes in PPC or advertising rates.
Look, SEO is most definitely not a fad and is probably the best marketing investment you can make on the Web. If you aren’t already doing so, start incorporating it into your marketing plan now.