95% now say SEO is important

A recent survey by an online magazine involved in SEO and E-Commerce, has discovered how much of a priority search engine optimization has now become for marketing professionals.

The magazine polled its readers this April and unveiled that 95 percent of them agreed that SEO was important to their business. The complete results revealed that just a single person now said that SEO wasn’t important to their organization, with the remaining respondents still being unsure.

The analysis also identified that over 80 percent of respondents revealed that their own company website was search engine optimized. Just 11 percent replied that it wasn’t.

Importance of SEO

There is little doubting that SEO continues to cast a vital shadow over online businesses. The survey asked for comments about the perceived importance of SEO and several positive phrases were used, in particular “imperative” and “essential.” However, one possible area for review was found in the large discrepancy between the numbers of people who said SEO was important compared to the numbers who said they understood it.

Only 40 percent of those readers polled said that they completely understood the concepts of SEO. The vast majority of people, over 54 percent, responded that they understood it “somewhat.” The remaining respondents said they did not understand it all.

PPC vs. SEO

A further survey conducted by Internet Retailer, went on to discover what type of search engine marketing the companies polled were leaning towards. Despite an almost equal set of positives being highlighted, the study discovered that people still considered natural search to be the most effective. Over 50 percent of retail marketers responded with the information that over a quarter of their website traffic came in through natural search. Asked the same question for paid search and the results were 28 percent.

Both surveys continue to highlight though, how vital having an effective SEO campaign now is for companies.

Ignition Search have always aimed to try and empower businesses by busting the myths surrounding SEO and have taken another significant step toward achieving this as Jon Colegate has come on board to join the team heading up delivery and strategy.

You may be familiar with Jon’s name from his time running Sunflower Net Media and he has become increasingly active delivering workshops and seminars in the area through Business Link and SENTA. His move towards knowledge provision has superceded his direct work for clients in most cases and the newfound balance at Ignition works well for all concerned - especially clients!

Exploding SEO Myths

One of the biggest issues that clients face when looking at an SEO solution is understanding where the jargon ends and where the beneficial services begin. Here at Ignition we have always prided ourselves on using simple language and not attempting to hide behind jargon.

We drill down into what is important for clients - generally results! - and by understanding their business and goals we offer the most relevant services that we feel will match their needs.

There’s an awful lot of misinformation out there and we’re happy to clear up these myths and inaccuracies as we go.

Jon’s seminar work focusses on these issues as well and offers manageable chunks of information that many take away and apply to their own websites.

Results Speak the Loudest

So, we find ourselves educating clients in the natural course of seeking new business and also in dealing with existing clients.

We don’t know it all. It’s impossible to know everything in such a fast moving and innovative industry, but we’re not afraid to say we don’t know and come back with an answer after we’ve found it.

The result of all this is an honest and open relationship with clients; and a relationship that produces results.

If you are interested in seeing Jon at one of his seminars take a look at the recent Business Link brochure of events or contact us here at Ignition.

Just when you think they’ve run out of ideas to develop search engines, the bright sparks at Google go and prove us all wrong by releasing a new piece of search engine software.

‘Real Time’ has recently been launched to help provide users with access to up to the second information across a platform where information is being created at a pace where seconds matter in assisting and ultimately optimising results.

Google’s ‘Real Time’ software extracts up to the second data from over a billion pages available on the web. Not only will the software scan promotional websites for information, it will also be able to read the data being broadcast by social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, which all have constantly changing material in the form of profile updates.

SEO Implications

Google are setting the trend for SEO development as this is the first time ever that any search engine has integrated real time web data into its results output.

Search engine optimisation from a business point of view is all about relevance from both an industry and customer perspective. With billions of web pages across the internet, a bundle of information is being generated every second, so getting the relevant material to appear on a results page is integral to the success of a product.

With more businesses using social media platforms as part of their SEO and internet marketing campaigns, as a means of regularly updating the customer with news and offers, it is hoped that ‘Real Time’ could help assist rankings as soon as new updates are released.

The real time stream of data will continue to be shown in Google’s normal results page.

Competitive Stance

The recent announcement by Google has been hailed as a landmark event in the world of search, but some analysts view this as an aggressive push by Google to maintain its mantle as the innovative leader in a search market they already control 81% of.

Further to the release of ‘Real Time’, it is proving to be a busy end to the year for Google as they also unveiled ‘Google Goggles’, a new visual search feature that allows consumers to use a picture instead of keywords with regards to a search query. The new tool will then compare the image against Google’s database to return relevant information.

With both software releases proving to be revolutionary for search engines, it will almost certainly have big implications for the way SEO works with more material available to boost both individuals and brands. Watch this space ……

As technology continues to revolutionise the way we interact with businesses, most companies will have already set up a website as the amount of business conducted online continues to grow with the rate of technological advancement.

Having already established an online portal for customers to make contact, these businesses have begun the first steps of integrating an SEO strategy. Depending on the size of the company and ultimately the marketing budget available will decide the size and effort of the SEO campaign to promote the brand and business.

It is inevitable that smaller businesses will have smaller budgets, but one cost effective technique that can be applied to their strategies is a regular blog.

Small Business Blogs

For small businesses, there are many search engine optimisation benefits to be gained from introducing a blog onto your website. At the very least, it will help boost the amount of traffic the site generates. The blog itself is a direct extension to your business and can act as a promotional voice for your brand.

When first getting started, one post per week is regarded as sufficient. The number of posts can be increased as and when news occurs but it is advised to maintain posting articles as it shows the search engines that your site is active and is regularly updated with fresh content.

What do I write about?

There are no real rules to launching a small business blog, you are free to write about everything and anything you want, whether it is a company news update or response to a recent news article regarding your industry sector. The best place to start however is a basic introduction to the company, letting the reader know what type of business you are.

The more blogs you do and the more experienced you become over time, you will begin to figure out the most effective ways to structure your blog posts and what to write about the generate interest.

If you have a list of targeted keywords for your business, you can start to target blog posts around specific keywords which can also help improve rankings and induce more site traffic.

The Benefits

With regards to SEO, blogging is one of the most powerful ways to build your brand and site popularity with regards to search engine rankings. The topics of your posts and the keywords used allow you to expose the business to a wider audience and provide you with the opportunity to link the content from other powerful websites.