BoxStuff

Search Engine Marketing - why should you be doing it?

Did you know that the first ten links listed on the first page of a search engine’s results receive just over 89% of all traffic! Of that traffic, the first ranking position in the search results receives 42.25% of all click-through traffic, the second position receives 11.94%, the third 8.47%, the fourth 6.05%. So where do you want to be? Page 1, position 1? Try typing various different keywords into Google, Yahoo and Bing and seeing where you currently appear in the results. If its not somewhere in the top 3 then straight away you’re losing 60% of your potential customer base. If you’re not on the first page, then there goes another 30%!

PPC vs SEO: Many of you will have heard of organic search (SEO) as opposed to paid search (Pay-per-Click). Well did you also know that although 90% of Search Engine marketing budgets go on Pay-per-Click adverts only 10% of web traffic actually comes from clicks on the paid for results. Conversely, with only 10% of budgets spent on search engine optimisation techniques (organic search), in reality 90% of traffic comes from the organic search listings. That’s why it’s important to budget for ongoing SEO to maintain good organic placement.

Why is search important as a channel? To start with, the numbers: over 50% of Internet users use search on a daily basis. Add to that the general decline in acceptance by web users of display advertising – banners, buttons, pop-ups etc – and search becomes a major way to find and advertise goods and services to new potential customers. Not only that but search is unique in that it gives brands the power to be in front of the consumer at the very time of consumption. Search is an intent driven activity. We don’t search casually, we search to find answers, information, and goods and services to consume. What does that mean for you as a marketer? It means truly qualified leads and it means greater return on your marketing investment as a result.

Getting ready for our Mobile Future

Some of you may have noticed the recent skew towards mobile related blog posts over the last couple of weeks. Well that’s because we want to highlight the importance that mobile is going to play in 2011. As one well known digital marketer recently stated, taking a “wait and see” approach to mobile is no longer the way forward. Today’s consumer is already mobile and this strategy will only “land your brand squarely in the consumer’s rear view mirror”.

According to Gartner research, mobile will outpace the desktop web by 2013 with more mobile devices accessing the Internet than PCs. But if you’re thinking that 2013 seems a long way off, well think again. Here in the UK, mobile internet retail sales are already worth £123 million and are set to more than double over the next two years. According to the latest research by Ofcom, 23% of UK’s mobile phone users now regularly use their handsets to access the internet and as the uptake in smartphones increases so too will mobile internet usage. Already many mainstream UK businesses are reporting that between 5-15% of their overall site traffic is mobile based and with more than 50% of users aged 18-39 also checking their email on their mobile if you have an e-CRM programme there’s another channel that needs to be optimised for mobile!

So here’s a challenge for you: have a quick check of your site statistics. This will illustrate just how popular your website already is with mobile users. It could also highlight the need for a mobile-specific interface, especially if the mobile stats don’t paint a pretty customer experience e.g. a high bounce rate for key site pages viewed on a mobile device. Then have a look at your own company site on your mobile. For example, if your non-mobile optimised website has components that use Flash, any iPhone/iPad browsers will not be able to render the content ultimately resulting in a poor user experience.

Want to learn more? Need some help building your business case for your investment in mobile and for working out what the return on your investment would be? BoxStuff now offers a range of mobile services so get in touch now and talk to us about how you can ready yourself and your business for today’s rapidly developing mobile future.

Working from home today

Slightly reduced service today as working from home in between building snowmen and exploring the winter wonderland with our very excited children!

Also trying out the great new panoramic camera app for iPhone:

http://occip.it/pyg9pnt0j

QR Codes in a Retail Environment...

Following on from my last post where I talked about retailers turning to mobile coupons, here’s another way that mobile is being used in the retail environment: QR codes or 2D barcodes. QR or Quick Response codes are 2D codes which can be scanned with software on your mobile. This scan then triggers an action based on the information that is encoded within the code. So you might be taken to a mobile site, given a mobile coupon or information on a product. Data can even be rich content like video or music files.

The explosion of the smartphone market allowed barcode scanning to grow 700 percent from January 2010 to July 2010. Indeed for further proof of their popularity we need look no further than The Oracle shopping centre in Reading.