UK Online retailers see benefits of SEO & PPC
May 17th, 2007
According to a recent report by Internet Retailer, internet retailer (e-tailers) are shifting more and more of the marketing budgets to online marketing, in particular search engine optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC). The report was a result of a recent survey by Internet Retailer into such trends.
The report went on to state
- 30% of merchants said at least 50% of sales came via search engine marketing
- 82% of respondants did not have any plans to reduce pay-per-click spending for 2007
- 75% said search was working better than any other form of marketing activity
- Only 12% said it was underperforming compared with other online marketing activity.
However, suprisingly the report went on to say that many internet retailers prefered keeping their search marketing activity in house - somewhat suprising considering the current dearth of high quality search engine marketing specialists , with 66% going on to say that they had no plans to outsource such activity to external third parties.
Other trends were also highlighted during the survey
- 39% placed priority on paid search activity rather than SEO
- 34% focussed on SEO activity only
As regards sales activity, the following trends were significant
- 46% found that Organic search had a better ROI
- 37% said that PPC had better results
- 16% said both were equally as effective
The report concluded:
“Eighty percent of e-tailers are making changes to their website text to match what people are searching for. For the most poart, those engaged in PPC efforts plan to trim the number of keywords they manage but increase spending on those that survive the cull. ‘The intents is’ to improve ROI on the most effective keywords.”
With statistics such as this becoming the norm in many sectors, it is still suprising how many retailers are still cautious at embracing the Internet. Whilst, I am by no means saying that developing an online presence is a guaranteed route to success, it is however an important part in any marketing strategy. I would also go on to say that their is an educational factor with search marketing, which in many instances needs to be overcome, however as a ‘profession’ (which lets face it online marketing now is), this should be part of our remit.
Entry Filed under: SEO Industry
1 Comment Add your own
1. Matt Ambrose | May 18th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
You might be interested in this report by Tamar search marketing: http://www.tamar.com/search-report-full inwhich they found that 9 out of 10 prefer the natural results due to perceived relevcancy and greater trust. PPC has its advantages and can be very effective if you know your conversion rate. But if your potentially missing out on 90 % of potnetial traffic surely businesses should be thinking more longterm and adopting an ongoing SEO cmapaign.
Please dont read this as a blatant plug, but I write weekly about the advantages of SEO other than just a high serach ranking in terms of marketing, exposure, networking etc. As proof of its effectiveness, I’m currently ranked on the first page of Google for search term ‘copywriter’ simply from writing about my profession once a week.
Unfortunately, and rather embarrasingly, I haven’t updated my sitemap for a while but once Google’s pagerank next updates, and it sees Ive got 2600+ backlinks, I should be even higher. The one problem that I need to overcome is that the search results point ot my blog rather than business homepage, but I’m sure Ill be able to find a way around this.
Again, I’m not trying to plug my services - I just think there is a lack of awarness of how effecttive wrirting content to your site every week can be in driinge a multifacted online marketing cmapaign.
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