SEO has proven to be an effective tool in achieving a number of important marketing objectives. But of all of the major objectives, where does SEO help the most? The above chart comes from
MarketingSherpa’s 2011 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – SEO Edition
. The question asked to those 2,194 B2B and B2C marketers surveyed was,“In your experience, how effective has search engine optimization (SEO) been at accomplishing these marketing objectives for your organization?”
It’s not surprising that increased website traffic ranks number one. If SEO doesn’t increase the number of visitors to your site, then something is not going right with your SEO. What is heartening about this chart was that marketers rated “increase lead generation” as number 3.
One question I have from this chart is what kinds of companies (big, small medium, B2B, B2C) found SEO to be very effective at increasing lead generation? Luckily, the very next chart in this report breaks down this information by organization size, and the one after that by primary market (B2B or B2C). This is not meant as a data tease, because HubSpot has licensed the Target Objectives excerpt from this MarketingSherpa report, and you can download it for free here.
In this excerpt is a chart on the effectiveness of SEO objectives in relation to social media users and non-social media users. Download the Target Objectives excerpt and find out how you compare to other marketers.
Do you agree with your peers on the most effective SEO target objectives?
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Dan Tyre 7:08 PM on August 25, 2010
I think more than traffic, the key is specific traffic and the attraction of qualified buyers; prospects who use long tail keywords to find you and then potentially convert to leads
Marios 9:28 AM on August 26, 2010
In my opinion small local business can really get the full advantage of SEO. Its all about attracting the right people to buy your product.
Arnold 11:09 AM on August 26, 2010
I agree with the assessment. The clients I've worked with #1 request is always increased web traffic so I think it's on target with real world expectations.
Internet Marketing Certificate 11:36 AM on August 26, 2010
Just as Dan points out it's not only about traffic it's about quality traffic. You can bring traffic all day but if they have no interest in what you're offering it's useless traffic.
If I'm bringing traffic to a teens clothing store from a forensic accounting site the results will most likely be poor. However, if I'm bringing traffic from a top teen musician there will probably be higher conversions and interest.
Billy MacDonald 1:10 PM on August 26, 2010
Very interesting to see that 17% cited SEO as being an effective way to increase offline sales revenue. Ultimately, as stated above its not just about the traffic, but the right type of traffic which reflects upon sales.
Dave Howell 1:50 PM on August 26, 2010
You guys (HubSpot)are content wizards. I'm struggling but doing my best to raise our website from an 89 to a 99 by Christmas! Thanks for all your insight.
Henry 2:28 PM on August 26, 2010
If we look at online and offline sales revenue, small businesses are outperforming larger businesses. This shows us, for the most part, that having a niche product or small geographical element to your SEO ultimately drives hits that will have much higher sales potential.
Would you rather have 1000 hits that turn into 1 sale...or 100 hits per day that turn into 5 sales?