Search Engine Optimization Seen as Top Online Marketing Tool for Generating Search Engine Traffic and Customer Leads

Search engine optimization (SEO) is seen as the top online marketing tool and the best way to generate search engine traffic and generate online customer leads according to new study results released by online marketing researchers, E-consultancy and Clash-Media.  Their report, “Online Lead Generation 2008”, details how natural search, paid advertising (pay-per-click, or PPC) and e-mail marketing are viewed by businesses in the UK, United States and Europe as the best ways of generating consumer leads online. 

Interestingly, however, less business resources are being spent on natural search, the methods by which business websites are optimized to ensure that a company’s web pages show up in consumers’ organic search results on search engines such as Google, than are being spent on paid advertising through PPC.

The E-consultancy/Clash-Media results demonstrate just how important Internet marketing is seen to be by the business community in the UK. (Businesses polled for the E-consultancy/Clash-media report were primarily based in the UK, but with significant representation from U.S. and European businesses.)  94% of respondents surveyed indicated that generating consumer leads online is viewed as a “growth area”, as compared to 82% who viewed online lead generation as an emerging growth area last year.

The near unanimous view that online marketing and Internet advertising is a growth area underscores how important it is for businesses to have an effective online marketing presence.  This is particularly so for small, local businesses for which the rapid growth in consumers using local search and mobile search to find products and services in their locale represents both a challenge and a growth opportunity to be exploited. 

Sesimi.co.uk offers a solution for small businesses seeking to generate local search engine traffic, with its ability to build and host small businesses web pages featuring optimized local business profiles using the most advanced SEO techniques.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 2:20 pm and is filed under local search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.