Search engine optimization (SEO) budgets are increasing as marketing executives gain knowledge of how SEO can benefit advertising and marketing campaigns. eMarketer is reporting that SEO budget allocations are expected to rise in the coming years as compared to other search marketing strategies.
With the decline in the economy, customer acquisition is becoming more and more vital. As the focus on customer acquisition increases, SEO becomes a more vital part of the overall marketing strategy. Because SEO provides a long term strategy for increased consumer presence, it has added value as compared to paid search marketing.
“Search Marketing Trends: Back to Basics” reports that SEO growth will grow from 17.7% to 20.3% while paid search will decline from 15.9% in 2009 to 11.3% in 2013. When searching for information, consumers find more value in organic search results than pay per click (PPC) advertising. The value placed by consumers on organic search results garners more clicks on these results thus making SEO a valued part of the marketing plan.
SEO Market Growth
Combining SEO and PPC marketing efforts may result in higher search engine result rankings. Paid search engine advertising offers more immediate results, but in order to see results in the search engine arena advertising must be consistent. SEO marketing results occur over a longer time frame, but result in organic search results more valued by consumers.
In order to gain the most information and knowledge of your results, Web analytics is necessary. Having solid feedback regarding your SEO and PPC marketing efforts will allow you to gage how successful your campaign is. More traffic is only positive if the cost of the search ad relative to the conversion doesn’t reduce your bottom line.
SEO is a bit like a good public relations strategy; it helps to bring top of mind awareness to your site. SEO gets them in the door, so you can complete the deal.
