A corporate website is part of a company’s overall marketing activity. While initially websites were thought of as perfunctory online brochures, they have taken on increasing strategic and financial importance to enterprises, large and small. Beyond the original focus on brand awareness, audience development, customer service, and retention, the achievement of greater market share, cost reduction, revenue, and profit are now major drivers of web strategies and systems.
Search Engine Marketing, usually abbreviated SEM, is the process and strategy of using the results of search engines as a vehicle to gain traffic and visibility and the implied increase in sales that comes with that visibility. This Search Engine Marketing may include improving ranks in organic listings, purchasing paid listings, or a combination of methods all designed to increase visibility, clicks, leads, and, of course, orders. Based on the specifics of implementation, Search Engine Marketing can be the most trackable of a company’s efforts for the purposes of determining its return on investment.
Search Engine Marketing has grown in importance with the rise in use of Search Engines in purchasing activities. Most adults who buy online rely on search engines to research their purchases
- Over 55% of all Internet purchases begin with a search engine. [Jupiter Media Matrix]
- 93% of these consumers do not look past the first two pages of the search results. [Jupiter Media Matrix]
- 88% of adults who purchase items online conduct some sort of online research at least sometimes prior to completing their purchase. [Harris Interactive® poll, 2005]
- 67% of US adults who research online before making a purchase decision use search engines as a research tool. [Harris Interactive® poll, 2005]
- 40% of those conducting online research go to search engines first.
Nearly equal percentages of respondents who use search engines to research products online use them to find a web site from which to buy (54%) or investigate where to purchase their desired product (53%). [Harris Interactive® poll, 2005]
Total online commerce in 2004 grew to a record level of more than $117 billion. Online lead generation not only fuels the online business, but according to Dieringer Research drove $180.7B in offline business in 2003.
An estimated 22% of all automotive sales were generated from the Web in 2004.
As a result, if you wish to be “visible” to these consumers you have to develop a strategy and implement a program to ensure that you are “ranked.” Since 93% of these consumers do not look past the first two pages of their search results, if you are not listed in those first two pages, then you may as well not be doing business online.
Search engines provide two mechanisms for you website to have “visibility”:
Neither of these is simple, nor straightforward given the ever-changing complexities of Internet technologies and market dynamics. The objective of your online marketing is to generate leads from traffic and convert those leads into customers. ClearLead is the leader in Search Engine Marketing and Lead Generation. ClearLead Marketing teams are experienced in online business and technology. We start a relationship with the end result: your business goals. To find out more about how ClearLead can help you achieve your business goals, please click here. |
