Search Engine Metrics… Organic Search vs. Paid Placement

Let me preface this report by citing advertisers in 2004 have spent 4 Billion dollars on search engine marketing according to (SEMPO) the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.

Website marketers cited Search engine positioning was the top method to drive traffic to their sites (66%), followed by email marketing (54%). Source: Direct Marketing Association. Accordingly, the most cost effective way to market your web site online is to obtain several top 10-search engine rankings in the major search engines for your keywords.

According to a recent Jupiter Research Survey, searching on the search engines is one of the main uses of the Internet among 79% of users. Source: September 2002 Jupiter Research Survey. So that being the case, whatever your promoting you’ll want to make sure it can be found on the first page of the search engines results page.

The reason is numerically simple. An Iprospect Survey in 2002 reported that 78% of web users abandon their search if the first 3 pages don't provide an answer to their question, and 28% don’t scroll past the 2nd page of results. Source: Media Post article reporting results of Spring 2002 IProspect survey.

Combine those facts with the Internets explosive growth rate of 1.8 Million people worldwide going online every week for the very first time, Source: Official Guide To Internet Promotion and you can soon appreciate what a top 10 ranking can mean to you.
Google receives approximately 39.4% of all search engine traffic. Yahoo receives approximately 30.4%. They’re simply the largest search engines being utilized online today.

Bringing up the rear is MSN at 29.6%, and AOL 15.5% then Ask Jeeves with 8.5%. Source: Nielsen//NetRatings January 2004

How much traffic is that? Well, Google and its partner sites were reporting a whopping 250 million searches a day in February 2003.

Overture and its partners were reporting over 167 million searches per day. Inktomi reported 80 million followed by LookSmart with 45 million per day.

FindWhat reported 33 million while Ask Jeeves reported 20 million, Alta Vista reported 18 million and finally Fast reported 12 Million searches per day. Source: Searchenginewatch.com 2004.

With all said, you can easily see how your search engine rankings are directly proportional to the traffic your web site receives, and your site traffic is directly related to your potential to profit online.

Oh, and in case your wondering how much money is spent online; a recent Forrester Research Report indicated that online spending reached $95,700,000,000 million in 2003!
That's a cool 95.7 billion dollars. Projected online spending is estimated to grow to $229 billion in 2008! A whopping 139% increase in online spending! Source: Forrester Research

Now with these facts in mind I’m confident you can clearly see what a top 10-search engine ranking can mean for your bottom line. Although it does leave a question unanswered in my mind, what has a higher ROI… organic search engine optimization or paid search?

According to SEMPO’s key analysis, the U.S. & Canadian SEM Industry Size Estimate by tactic in 2004, organic SEO accounted for 12% of the market share or $492,057,200 while Paid Placement accounted for $3,341,878,176 or 81.8%.

Interestingly, 9 out of 10 respondents are actively engaged in organic SEM marketing programs accounting for 89% of the respondent advertisers. This trend can be contributed to the average cost of popular keywords continuing to escalate.

If the escalation continues to rise it could make paid search engine advertising exponentially cost prohibitive for all but the largest advertisers… the 900lb gorillas!

Simply put, ROI is outpacing inflation: SEMPO’s key analysis indicates advertisers could afford to pay on average 33% more for their keywords and remain profitable, while they say prices have gone up 26% on average in the last 12 months. That’s leaves a 7% advertising margin to maintain current profits for 2005!

SEMPO’s data also noted that advertisers will get smarter about managing their paid placement programs before they cut back on spending.

This is also consistent with a report released by Nielsen/NetRatings indicating that the growing demand for search engine advertising is outstripping the supply of currently available advertising space.

These findings seem to indicate the inventory of keywords is approaching a critical demand problem however; most advertisers felt they still have some degree of price flexibility in their paid placement programs before they will reach the threshold of diminishing returns.

Is there any wonder why organic search engine positioning has gained popularity for online marketers in 2004? Could it be higher (ROI) return on investments?

SEMPO also cites that 43% of advertiser respondents have shifted their budgets away from other marketing programs for Organic SEO.

So what does it all mean? Let the numbers speak for themselves.

Organic SEO is undeniably gaining favor over the lower ROI paid advertising. This is evidenced by virtue of the fact that paid advertising is becoming less profitable.

Although paid advertising will continue to hold a large portion of the market shareFree Web Content, as paid advertising returns diminish and keyword costs soar my early 2005 forecast is for the materialization of a progressive organic SEO market trend to facilitate the need for advertising space.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lawrence Deon is an SEO/SEM Consultant and author of the popular search engine optimization and marketing model Ranking Your Way To The Bank. http://www.rankingyourwaytothebank.com

Website Search Engine Positioning

Search Engine Positioning Does Not Have to Be a Complicated Process! Find Out How I Have Gained Top Search Engine Spots in Google with Little to No Optimization...
The greatest thing about getting high ranking positions in the major search engines is that it's 100% free. This is also the reason why it's difficult to attain the top positions in markets outside of very tight niches.

Search engine optimization can seem a very complicated process and if you want to make it that way, you can. You can spend a lifetime studying the search engine logarithms and every little keyword trick to position your website higher, but the problem is - the major search engines, like Google, keep changing the rules.

Anything I write here may not even apply 6 months from now but what I have learnt from my own experience, getting top search engine placement is a simple process. That's right - Simple!Simple does not mean that you do not have to do any work. Like most of my other online strategies I have to work hard to gain top placements. Also my experiences apply to only Google. I really don't care about the others at this point as Google provides high quality traffic and the lions' share of it too.

I have proven through my own methods that only two things matter -

1. The title of your page.
2. The backlinks to your sites.

I would even go as far to say that the title does not even matter all that much. The backlinks are the things that drive you up the search engines more than anything else. If you concentrate on this area above all others, you will do well.

When I refer to backlinks, I mean one way backlinks. Reciprocal linking used to be the main thing but I have found that this strategy has lost much of the power it would have had a few years ago. I still use reciprocal linking BUT my main concern are links from site where I do not have to link back.

A backlink with your keyword phrase in the linkback text is worth it's weight in gold.

I have taken many of my sites to the top of Google with numerous highly competitive keyword phrases. I have not optimized the main content of the pages, nor have I messed with the title much either, other than to put some keywords in the six word title tag.

So it can be done, and it works. If I could put images in this article I could show you the top postions that I have achieved. Feel free to get in touch with me and I can show you proof.

Apply the simple process of getting one way backlinks in a niche market and the strategy becomes all the more powerful and rewarding.

You can believe that search engine optimization is for the elite only, and never get started. OrBusiness Management Articles, take the jump now and do some testing for yourself. You will find that the only things that search engine experts are doing that you aren't is putting in the hours. There is nothing complicated about it!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

To find out the Two Proven, Powerful Strategies that I use to Propel my Sites to the Top of the Search Engines Check Out Affiliate Article Marketing and SEO Elite Review