According to the latest statistics released by Nielsen net ratings group, Australia today has over 72.9% Internet penetration and the Internet usage has zoomed by 132% in the past one year.

Search Engine usage and Entertainment are among the fastest growing categories online., as the Internet is increasingly becoming the preferred choice of information access across the world. As the popularity of the Internet increases, its content quantum is also multiplying at an incredible rate. Search engines offer the simplest ways of sifting through billions of web pages on almost every conceivable topic on earth. Search engines thus help unlock the true value of the information around the world. No wonder search engines attract amongst the most traffic volumes on the Internet and their marketing clout remains largely unchallenged.

Targeted marketing campaigns that leverage the many advantages of search engines provide better returns on your marketing spend. The top three search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN, with a combined marketshare of approximately 94% (Nielsen Netratings data) attract majority of web visitors to their sites. In order to maintain their popularity amongst a rapidly growing section of web visitors; these search engines check each webpage in the Internet universe for its content relevance/integrity and its popularity amongst the active Internet users. Besides serving up web-pages as per the inputted search keywords and key-phrases, search engines also offer space for companies to advertise about their unique product or service. Search engines thus meet most of the information search needs of Internet users and are the number one choice of marketers as they are reasonably assured of good returns on search engine marketing campaigns.

Just how important is being found on the first page of Google

The web today represents ‘information overload’ as search engines pick thousands of web pages for most of the search keywords and key phrases. Very few users have the patience and energy to sift through more than the first page of search results. Web traffic analysis shows that the maximum click throughs are in the top 10 search results on the 1st page of the search engine result pages. The content layout on most search engines has natural SEO webpages on the left hand side while on the right hand side there PPC advertisements linked to the selected keywords or key phrases.

People generally like unbiased / neutral information on the search query they put on the search engine as they feel that is the closest to the facts they seek. Heat maps or web traffic analysis on the most visited sections of the search engine result webpage also confirm this view.  

To achieve long term success and consistent growth in web traffic to your website you are advised to invest in coordinated SEO efforts (content, design, programming, tagging, linking, blogging and directory submission) to make it to the top 10 results on the left hand side of the search result web-page.

As the methodology of page ranking keeps changing in search engines like Google, it makes business sense to employ a company who is specialises in watching the latest search engine trends so your company stays ahead of the game.  A combination of organic SEO efforts, targeted PPC advertisements and viral marketing strategies represent the most effective means of increasing client acquisition from your website.