Importance of Search Engine Positioning
By
Sumantra Roy
It
has become fashionable for some Internet marketers
to claim that search engine positioning is dead,
that search engines really don't drive traffic
to your web site, and that you really need not
spend any time or money on search engine positioning.
Are they right? Well, let's look at some hard
facts:
According
to a survey
by the Georgia Institute of Technology,
more than 86% of all people find out about other
sites through the search engines.
A
January 1999 survey conducted by Forrester Research
asked web users what they rated as the most
effective way of getting them to a web site
in the first place. 57% replied search engine
positioning, 38% replied email, 35% replied
external links, and 28% replied word of mouth.
Another
study
by WebCMO shows
that the most effective way of generating web
site traffic is search engine submission.
And,
as you may already know, merely submitting your
site to the search engines is not enough. Unless
your site appears in the top 30 of the major
search engines,
there is hardly any point in submitting your
site at all.
That
is the reason another study by ActivMedia Research
shows that 66% of online marketers find that
search engine positioning drives traffic. A
top ranking in the search engines can bring
you highly targeted traffic. If someone visits
your site after searching for a product or service
that you are selling, it means that he/she is
interested in what you are selling and hence
is a potential customer for you. Hence, search
engines send pre-qualified customers to you.
Also,
consider what the April 2000 issue of Target
Marketing Magazine had to say about search engine
placement:
Top
Ways Websites are Discovered
| Banner
ads |
1% |
| Targeted
email |
1.2% |
| TV
spots |
1.4% |
| "By
accident" |
2.1% |
| Magazine
ads |
4.4% |
| Word-of-mouth |
20% |
| Random
Surfing |
20% |
| Search
Engines |
46% |
Hence,
unless your web site is at the top of the search
engines, you are losing thousands of potential
customers, which can translate into hundreds
of thousands of dollars in lost profits. The
search engines are by far the most important
source of traffic for your web site. Don't ignore
them.
Article
by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most
respected and recognized search engine positioning
specialists on the Internet. For more articles
on search engine placement, subscribe to his
1st Search Ranking Newsletter by sending a blank
email to mailto:1stSearchRanking.999.99@optinpro.com
or by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com
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