The Advantage of SEO

Brands may further their website promotion if they combine the attributes of both search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid search on sites such as Google.

This is according to research director with Marketing Sherpa Sergio Balegno, who made this recommendation after the publication of the company's latest chart, which compared the quality and quantity of business-to-business search-generated leads.

The research revealed SEO delivered the highest rates in both the quantity and quality categories, providing the same number of high-quality leads than all the paid search sources - ranging from Google to MSN and AOL - put together. 

Mr Balegno observed, however, that companies would profit from using paid search as well, because this gives advertisers greater control over the placement of result listings and timings of campaigns.

He noted that the "secret of optimising paid search results … is the sequential relevancy of the search term to ad listing to landing page".

In addition, he stated that the best strategies are those using both SEO and paid search "to give marketers and their sales teams the best of both worlds".

And Sam Tilston of Zoombits.co.uk added to this, advising SEO firms to consider using long tail keywords, as these deliver "very targeted and high quality" leads.

Source: Marketing Sherpa