After speaking at a Base One Search seminar in September I was surprised how the attitude to SEO is changing. B2B marketers are finally starting to realise there is more to search marketing than pay-per-click advertising. What became clear from feedback is that there are many of you that want to see what SEO can offer,but can’t sell it to upper management. ‘SEO? Isn’t that the dark art of online marketing with no guarantee?’ Your boss might not understand why it would be beneficial to invest in SEO when results aren’t guaranteed and PPC advertising is so transparent – you pay for each click, there is no mystery, that’s it.
Search statistics
- 89 per cent of Internet users use a search engine every day
- Search is responsible for 49 per cent of online purchases
- In B2B, 93 per cent use the Internet to research a purchase or service
This is all well and good, but your boss might insist you invest in PPC as you know what you are getting and you only pay per click. But what would the downside be? Notably, 74 per cent of search engine users prefer organic results to sponsored links (PPC advertising).
By only utilising PPC advertising you are missing out on the significant section of your audience that uses search engines. Furthermore, less than one per cent of searchers go past the second page of search results. In fact, the first four results in Google organic listings receive 53 per cent of total search volume (click-throughs to websites). So if you are not on the first page of Google for your most important keywords you are losing a lot of traffic – but more importantly you are losing out on business. By not positioning your brand online for targeted keywords you ensure that your product or service is not visible at the ‘virtual point of sale’. This will allow not only your offline competitors to compete for prospective sales but also let online competitors encroach on potential sales.
Online searches should not be evaluated solely in terms of the goods or services acquired because they can support many different outcomes. SEO not only enhances the chances for increased visitors and conversions online but acts in synergy with your offline marketing efforts. Information retrieved by prospective consumers from online searches can positively affect future offline buying decisions. This is particularly important in the B2B environment – as mentioned earlier, 93 per cent of customers in B2B use the Internet to research a purchase or service.
Get to the top
Since web users now place so much importance on search to find information, companies have not only begun to realise the significance of ranking within search engines, but ranking within the top results.
The below figure illustrates the click distribution of browsers when searching for a product or service. It highlights the importance of appearing within the first four results of the organic listings.
For example, if you had a business offering ‘IT support services’ the most important keyword to generate volume of traffic and also high conversions would be ‘IT support’. The average search volume for this keyword on Google is 8370 searches per month. If you were just utilising PPC advertising your likely search volume (click-through to your website) might be around the region of 251 visitors per month on the basis of a three per cent average click through rate (CTR). Significantly, if you also invested time and energy into SEO and began appearing as the first result in the organic listing this is likely to increase to an additional 4436 visitors on a monthly basis. The impact SEO can have on a website is valuable in terms of increasing site visibility and gaining traffic.
The growth of the Internet and the reliability on search engines to find information strengthens and supports why numerous businesses are switching their advertising budget online, not only in the consumer world but also within the B2B environment. Whether your company acknowledges, realises and acts upon the value of SEO is up to you, but the simple act of positioning your brand online through search engines is as essential as opening your doors to let customers in.
