“The power of online is in the hands of the searcher.
When someone lands on a page, they should be satisfied with the result.”
– SearchDex CEO David Chaplin
Search is important to a business’ overall success, and an essential part of the “consumer behavior funnel” Awareness-Research-Purchase-Customer Loyalty:
A SearchDex study reveals that marketers believe search is a key business strategy:
- 93% said it was “extremely” or “very” important to have high search rankings.
- 96% said an automated solution may help them keep track of their search program.
- Lack of SEO strategy may negatively impact consumer interest, loyalty, trust, and profits.
Following are 3 tips to help make search programs more valuable:
1) Recognize the customer journey.
- Search is a top-of-funnel activity – a consumer may not purchase immediately after a search result, so it’s important to have other secondary campaigns.
- If top-funnel consumers like where the search click takes them, they’re likely to bypass the search bar and go directly to your website to purchase.
2) Maintain your brand.
- Consumers can find whatever they’re looking for and can compare prices in an instant, so the real value a company has is its brand.
- Searchers who have an unsatisfying post-click experience may not return to make a purchase.
3) Keep content updated.
- Search is no longer simply a keyword game — Google’s algorithms are getting more sophisticated, giving more weight to valuable content.
- Whatever you put on the Internet should be useful to the consumer transaction, with content that is informative, valuable and current.
Given the importance marketers have placed on search for a company’s overall performance, it’s clear that search is still vital to any business.
Source: MediaPost-SearchInsider, Aaron Baar; SearchDex; Cahner’s Magazine