As reported on SearchEngineLand.com Google grew its revenues by 24% during the 1st Quarter of 2012, which represents a staggering $10.65 billion during that quarter alone. A graphical representation of this can be seen in the image below:
Source: http://searchengineland.com/google-grows-revenues-24-from-last-year-plans-new-class-of-stock-118156
So with all of that said, there are a couple things that this actually means to small business in the short and near term.
1) First and foremost, companies are spending more money on search advertising in its various forms, because it works.
Generally, companies won’t spend advertising dollars on something that doesn’t convert, correct?
Well, you can see from the chart that companies are spending more on BOTH Adwords, and are garnering a larger amount of money from publisher content on individual sites.
The green bar represents advertiser revenue on Adwords proper (via search), and the blue bar represents advertiser revenue on the Google Content Network, or in other words, the ads placed in individual sites and generate revenue by sending visitors to their sites.
2) Google maintains the lions share of searchers online, people who are looking for solutions to their problems and searching for services to use.
3) You need to be found on search engines in order to get in front of those customers. More companies are realizing a greater return on their investment running straight advertisements on search engines versus being “social”. While social media presence is important, the conversions and most importantly the mindset of those who are using the mediums just isn’t the same as someone who is actively searching for a solution.
Finally, remember the three pillars of a search engine marketing campaign:
1) Places Pages: Depending on the industry, this can gain you a huge competitive advantage for placement, and is the least used by businesses of the three strategies.
2) Adwords: Paid ads covering targeted searchers for the kinds of services and products you offer, not necessarily your brand name.
3) Organic Search: Often the most difficult for non-internet people to understand, really it is about developing your site and “telling” the internet precisely what your site is about.
If you’d like to learn more about what services Mile High SEO has to offer, fill out the simple form on this page with your name, email address, and phone number in order to get a free site consultation.
About the author: Kurt Henninger is the owner and Chief Operator at Mile High SEO, a Denver SEO Company.
Connect with the Author via Email | Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn|Facebook
