Does Google Deliver the Most Engaged Consumers?

SEO is important. It is the foundation of any internet marketing campaign. If potential clients cannot find you on the internet (via Google, Bing, etc.) then your business cannot grow.

But will all traffic generate revenue? This is one of the most overlooked aspects of internet marketing. Google may drive the most traffic, but that doesn’t mean those consumers are ready to make a purchase.

There are several stages in the ‘buy now’ journey:

• Need/Want
• Inquiry
• Education
• Emotional Impact
• Search
• Decision to Buy

Marketing to All Search Engines

Ask.com, Bing, and Yahoo drive fewer consumers than Google, but visitors who use these search engines  stay longer and view more pages. They are less likely to exit after reading one page, according to a recent analysis by Shareaholic.   This research is based on organic search data collected from December 2013 to May 2014 from over 300 000 sites with 400+ million monthly, unique visitors.

Here are some Interesting Facts That most business owners need to know:

• Ask had the highest ‘time on site’ at 190.53
• Ask had the lowest bounce rate at 55.83%
• Bing also had the highest average pages viewed per visit at 2.51
• AOL d beat Google for page views with 2.41
• All search engines out performed Google on everything but Bounce Rate.
• Google  drove 40% of the traffic while everyone else hovered between 1 – 4%.

But were those visitors consumers, or looking for the 3 E’s: Education, Entertainment, Engagement

Google drives more traffic, but when you sift through those numbers and focus on leads and consumer you find that the ‘return on investment’ is lower than expected.

Can You Find Consumers?

The #1 question most business owners ask is ‘where are our consumer’s?’ There is not a single answer, but the trends indicate that most shoppers use the following tools to find local businesses:

• Maps
• Citations and local directories
• Reviews
• Social networking
• Information marketing

The Secret to Citations That Attract Customers

Where you rank on the search engines is not as important the locations you rank. The internet marketing term is ‘geo targeting’.

Most small business owners do not realize that they can rank #1 on their personal computer for their prime keywords, but 2 streets over they do not appear on the search engine ranking positions. Being #1 on a free ranking program you find online, or on your computer, does not mean that your customers can find you.

The next important ‘search factor’ is what people are saying about you. Consumers want to know what other people say about you. People want to deal with real live people, not turnkey websites. The more digital the world becomes, the more consumers want the ‘human element’.

The businesses that will thrive in the years to come are the businesses that work hard to give the consumer’s what they desire and what they need.