Location, location, location is as important on the Internet as it is in real estate. Why spend time, resources, and money to develop a website that your audience can�t find?
All too often businesses invest a significant amount of time, money, and resources building impressive websites and then do little to promote them to drive the traffic. They just assume if they build it, visitors will come. Nothing could be further from the truth as competition for eyeballs increases daily across the Internet. For example, a Google search on the disease multiple sclerosis yields more than 16 million results and that number is increasing constantly. So anyone launching a new site on multiple sclerosis, or any subject area for that matter, instantly has a mountain of competition for attracting visitors. Fortunately there are ways to leap frog the competition and attract visitors quickly. How? The answer is to be in the right location.
The Internet is often referred to as the great information highway, but this highway has no street signs to help you find your way around. A number of years ago, Microsoft� aptly named their web browser Internet Explorer� possibly because you had to have the instincts of an explorer to find your way around. It was hard to know where to go, and what you�d find when you got there. Perhaps Christopher Columbus would have felt right at home.
Today, it�s easier to locate the vast resources on the web through the advancement of Internet search engines. They help information seekers find the most relevant and high quality websites. They also allow information providers, at least those who take advantage of it, the opportunity to post signs to their locations.
In the month of November 2005, 5.1 billion searches were conducted on the Internet in the U.S. alone.[1] This number is expected to grow 6%-9% in 2006 as more and more information seekers turn to the Internet to obtain information.
An enormous number of Internet searches are conducted on health related information. 99 million U.S. adults used the internet in the past 12 months to find health information. 95% of them report using a search engine to find the information they were seeking, and more than 31 million of them report the Internet as their first stop when seeking health information.[2]
So where is the right location for you to get your website or product information in front of these information seekers? The top positions on Internet search result pages.
You can obtain these top positions by optimizing your website to make it easier for search engines to identify the information on your website and accurately rank it against other websites. However, this natural or organic search method as it is called, can�t guarantee you�ll be listed at the top of the search results for any given search.
Another option is paid search listings. Paid search listings appear across the top of search results pages and usually on the right side of the search result pages as well. All the major search engines, including: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and others offer paid search listings. In fact, paid search listings have become the largest source of revenue for the major search engines. Why? Because it works!
There are several key features of paid search listings that make it a perfect complement to natural search optimization efforts, including:
� Guaranteed placement of ads at or near the top of search results for any term.
� Fast implementation - usually can be done in a matter of days.
� Immediate results � top rankings can result in a large volume of visitors overnight.
� Complete control over the message displayed in the listings.
� Complete control over the pages visitors link to on your website.
� Cost effective � pay only when an information seeker visits your website.
� Listings can be easily changed at any time.
� Requires no changes to your website.
� Can be implemented with any size budget.
� And more�
Furthermore, websites that have top listings in both paid search and natural search results, generate as many as three times more visitors than if the listings were only in the natural results or the paid results. [3] This may in part be explained by a study by Dick Morris Associates that indicates that 66% of consumers expect leading brands to hold the top listings in search results.
The most effective search engine marketing campaigns combine both a natural and paid search component to drive the best results.
For more information on how to optimize your paid and natural search campaigns, please contact Catalyst on-line at (617) 244-4697 or via email at info@catline.com
[1] Nielsen Netratings, December 2005
[2] Manhattan Research, November 2005
[3] MarketingSherpa Inc., IT Marketing Metrics Guide, May 2004
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