3 Arguments for Getting Search Marketing Budget
You get it.
You see the incredible opportunity that search engine optimization creates, but that doesn’t mean the key stakeholders share your vision. You know, the people allocating quarterly market budgets?
This article is designed to empower non-seo professionals with a data driven arguments to help get budget for search marketing.
Argument #1: We are missing incredible opportunity to gain marketing share by not being optimized.
In order to present an engaging argument for search engine optimization, it’s first important to understand the relevant audience you are missing every month by not appearing in the top 3 results for critical keywords.
The Google Keyword tool is wonderful in that it provides reasonably accurate information as to how many searches are conducted each month for a critical keyword.Learning about average monthly volumes is a terrific way to explain the total amount of relevant web traffic your company might be losing on a monthly basis.
Let’s take a quick look at the insurance industry. There are nearly 1.8 million searches conducted every month for the keyword insurance quotes. The question becomes, can a company afford not to compete in this space?
Argument #2- Being on the first page isn’t good enough.
In my experience, people are frequently taken aback when they realize how steep the drop off is from #1 to position #2 in a search engine results page.
Based on leaked data from AOL in 2006, sites ranking in the top 4 in a search engine can expecting the following percentages of traffic*:
Position #1: 47%
Position # 2: 13%
Position #3: 9%
Position#4: 7%
There is an amazing drop between being #1 and #2 in Google. Position #4 sees a tiny fraction of the traffic.
It gets even worse— sites at the bottom of page 1 (position 9-10) in a search engine can expect less than a 3% click-through rate. Next time your boss says, “We’re on page 1,” be sure to explain the significance.
Argument #3- SEO Traffic Often Provides Higher ROI Traffic Long-Term
If you turn off your PPC campaigns tomorrow, the traffic loss will be instant. By and large, the ad spend committed to PPC traffic will not produce little organic traffic. Unlike PPC, search engine optimization efforts can produce robust traffic for years after initial investment. Ranking highly creates more links and more links means higher ranking.
Why not reallocate some of the banner budget or old media ad spend and put it towards the users that are actively searching for you product? Undoubtedly, introducing a product through brand awareness reach is important, but the low hanging fruit often lies in targeting consumers that are a bit further along in the buy cycle.
*measure through click-through rate
