Is SEO Better than PPC?
Social media marketing has made a change for the better in the eyes of many. More in the field of social media are turning to Search Engine Optimization to improve their marketing efforts and this appears to be paying off. Social Media Examiner complies an industry report every year showing how marketers are making use of social networking sites and how this is benefiting them. Only e-mail marketing comes in ahead of social media.
Businesses need to make use of this information to better allocate advertising funds and see a higher return on investment. Paid search results come in a dismal sixth on the list of preferred marketing methods. For this reason, only 38% of social media marketers make use of paid searches while 65% now say they use Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine Optimization Statistics
For those in business to business social marketing, 67% said they made use of this technique. This is in contrast to business to consumer marketers who say they only use Search Engine Optimization 62% of the time. On thing that people did agree on is that 68$% of those who participated in this report state that they will be increasing their efforts in this area. This has decreased slightly from 71% in 2011, but is still a formidable number. In fact, 9% of respondents do not plan to make SEO a part of their marketing plan going forward. Only 43% stated that they will be increasing their use of pay per click advertising.
Facebook remains the top site for social marketing with 92% of respondents making use of the social networking site. Google+ comes in sixth, but the majority of respondents did say that plan to increase usage of this site in the future. What does this mean for your business and how does Search Engine Optimization and social media marketing benefit your business?
There are two major benefits of making use of this marketing technique. First and foremost, when you increase your presence on social media networks, you will find that you increase your overall exposure. According to 85% of those who participated in this study, an increase in exposure has been noticed. The second major benefit is that traffic to a site will increase with 69% of participants stating the social network sites had a positive impact on traffic. Marketplace intelligence is one thing that is gained with the use of this marketing technique. Lead generation and fan loyalty are two more that should be considered when determining if this marketing technique is right for you.
One reason why SEO is such an important aspect of this marketing technique is that it improves search engine rankings. For those who have been making use of social media for one year or more, almost 59% say they have seen a rise in their ranking on search engines. For those who have been using this strategy for three years or longer, this number goes up to 75%. More than half of those who spend six hours or more every week making use of social media sites for this purpose state that they have seen improvements. Business to business marketers found this to be more beneficial than business to consumer marketers. Either way, any improvement in search engine rankings is beneficial so you may wish to focus on SEO in the future to move your company forward.