Think Investing in SEO is a Waste? Think Again.

Think Investing in SEO is a waste? Think again.

SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is essentially the art and science (it’s both) of getting your website to rank above all others for certain search terms on search engines. I’m not talking about the “services” that charge you hundreds or even thousands of dollars to add phony-sounding keywords to your website and make all the promises in the world.

At PMG, I rarely take on a website assignment without an in-depth consultation about goals, perfect customers, target employees, and more. Why? Because great SEO means that you intimately understand the perfect customers for you, and you want the searches to draw in those perfect customers. We’re talking quality over quantity over here.

Understanding SEO and how it works is the key to unlocking its power. So in celebration of education, here’s some fun facts about search, particularly Google:

1. Every minute around the world, 6.8 million searches are performed on Google alone. That equals 8.5 billion searches per day. It’s a whole lot of “best beer near me” just in your neighborhood. With an estimated 8,019,876,189 people in the world as of 2024, that is more Google searches than every single adult and child in the world every day.
2. Speaking of Google alone, as of February 2024 Google fielded 91.62% of the total searches worldwide. In a much distant second, Bing had 3.31%, YANDEX (from Russia) 1.84%, Yahoo!: 1.09%, Baidu (from China): 0.77%, and DuckDuckGo: 0.53%. What does this mean to the small and medium-sized businesses that we work with? Spend your time optimizing for Google. If you’re ranking high on Google, you’re probably getting traffic.
3. Ranking high is no laughing matter, and quite honestly Paid Ads can’t even touch the Click-Though Rate of ranking #1-3. A Click-Through Rate is determined by the number of times a user clicks on your website divided by the number of times users see your site as a choice (an impression). Click through rates are as follows as of 2024:
   • Search Position 1: 39.1%
   • Search Position 2: 18.7%
   • Search Position 3: 10.2%
   • Search Position 4: 7.2%
   • Search Position 5: 5.1%
   • Search Position 6: 4.4%
   • Search Position 7: 3.0%
   • Search Position 8: 2.1%
   • Search Position 9: 1.9%
   • Search Position 10: 1.6%
   • Ad Position 1: 2.1%
   • Ad Position 2: 1.4%
   • Ad Position 3: 1.3% (typically bottom of the screen)
   • Ad Position 4: 1.2% (typically bottom of the screen)
4. What this tells us is that 68% of searches on Google are productive if they reach rank 1-3. The SEO is a much better investment than paid advertising.
5. Google’s tools for measuring all this data are FREE. Interpreting the massive amounts of data on Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Trends is a huge undertaking. An expert can help you take all of that data and turn it into meaningful changes. And besides, looking at the top searches for the day at Google Trends is pretty entertaining. Find it here: https://trends.google.com/trends/trendingsearches/daily?geo=US&hl=en-US
6. 78% of Google Searches lead to an offline purchase. And a whopping 81% of people do a Google search before making a purchase, large or small. For those in the restaurant/brewery/distillery industries, 89% of your customers are searching on their mobile device for you and your competitors before visiting.
7. On the subject of mobile, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you may be losing valuable customers. Like I said before, 89% of people are searching on mobile (not desktop) prior to visiting a restaurant or bar. Overall, 63% of Google searches are done on mobile (including tablets). So if they land on your site and can’t read it you’ve got a problem. More on mobile-friendliness in a future blog!

If these cold hard facts haven’t convinced you to make an investment in smart marketing and SEO, I don’t know what will. But be careful – we see every day companies bombarding us and our clients about SEO services. Understand what that really means, and what you’re getting for the several hundred dollars that you’re investing in your growth.

If you need help with what to do to help your website rank higher, we’re here to help. Our one-hour marketing audit is chock full of ideas, action steps and more that you can use to grow your traffic. During the months of June and July, the first 10 audits scheduled will be FREE, not the typical $500 investment. Invest one hour in yourself and your business. I promise it will be worth your while. Schedule your audit here.