Why search marketing works

Search marketing basically encompasses anything where the user makes a search query online and your business can be there to respond to said query. This is normally via SEO (search engine optimisation) and PPC (pay-per-click) using platforms like Google and Google Ads. Nowadays it can also include search on platforms such as Amazon, YouTube and even some social media networks who facilitate search functionality.

But primarily it’s the search engines and for almost all (92.47%) of searches that means Google.

The reason why search marketing is so effective is due to intent. If someone types into Google “barbershop near me” we have a very clear idea that their intent is to find and book an appointment with a local barbers. Similarly with the search query “best accountants for small businesses” we can infer the user has the intent to find a suitable accountancy practice to work with their company.

There inlies the beauty of search, with this intent we have a much higher chance of converting leads and sales as we can be there when they are ‘in-market’ and ready to buy. Unlike social media advertising for example where yes we can highly target using demographics and interests but with no clue if they are ‘in-market’. Using the barbershop example again we could target males, aged 25-34, within a 2 mile radius of the shop but we have no idea if they’re perfectly happy with their current barber etc. meaning the conversion rate will be much lower.

So how do we capture that search marketing intent? Well there are two primary ways in relation to Google, one a short term win and the other a medium-long term one. To get quick results we can use Google Ads where we create a campaign to show our business’ ads for search queries we determine are a good fit with high intent for our business. We do of course have to pay per click for this and will have to calculate it’s profitability to ensure the campaign is delivering a return on our investment.

The second way is SEO (search engine optimisation) where we aim to get pages of our website ranking organically for the search queries that are relevant to our business. Depending on the search term this can be highly competitive and therefore it will take time to build this up and patience to be consistent to get to that point.

One of the best ways of growing your websites ‘domain authority’ (an overall metric for SEO health of your site) is to create new content. By publishing informative, educational and helpful content around your subject area you can not only increase traffic to your website for these more informative queries but also increase the likelihood of showing up for the higher intent terms we referenced earlier.

All of the above is why search marketing is my preferred marketing channel. For clients who take the advice on board and are consistent with their content marketing activity, search is almost always their highest converting channel and due to the wonders of compounding this only grows over time.

As always if you’d like help creating your marketing strategy you can request a consultation call with me today.