Search still a powerhouse marketing channel

Posted by: Nathan Wood, Head of Digital Marketing 16 Feb 10 - 4:38PM | Search Marketing | World Wide Web

As a marketing channel, search has been around for more than 10 years. Data released by Hitwise last week shows that search is still a major channel that cannot be ignored as part of an integrated digital marketing campaign.

According to the data, Google UK received just under 9% of all website visits for the week ending 13/02/2010. It's nearest rival, Facebook, only managed approximately 6%, whilst the extremely popular BBC News website didn't even make 1% of all visits.

Considering that Google is not a portal or an ISP, this level of internet usage is quite phenomenal, and clearly demonstrates the dominance that Google has in the online environment and the role that search plays in the online journey of most internet users.Search is clearly the starting point for many online expeditions, as well as a companion tool throughout that journey.

There are two sides to search that should be considered as part of your overall strategy - paid search and organic search. Organic search is a true democracy, and in order to stand a chance of ranking companies will need to demonstrate brand power and high relevance within their website content for their key topics and key phrases. Rankings can take weeks or months or years, depending upon the competitiveness of the keyword phrase and the power and authority of the other sites competing for it.

Paid search is much more about paying for position, and if you have the right budget you can gain a page 1 search presence within hours, enjoying the traffic benefits that that exposure brings you.

Both approaches have their own benefits and drawbacks, and the choice of whether to use one or the other (or both) is dependent on your available budget, timelines, desired KPIs and available resources.

There are still opportunities within search for the digitally-minded recruitment consultancy to take advantage of in order to drive traffic and brand power. However, competitiveness within the channel can be very high, and we advise all companies to take professional advice on SEO viability before undertaking a campaign, a move that will almost always result in a much more efficiently spent budget.