is search engine optimisation profitable?

When about to invest in any kind of marketing or advertising, a business will ask the question: “What return on investment will I get from this”?

Some methods are more tangible than others. For example, place an ad in the Yellow Pages and you know a copy will be posted through every door in your region. Search Engine Optimisation (excluding pay-per-click) on the other hand, is a little harder to predict.

How do you know when somebody will visit Google or MSN and type in ‘spongey widget manufacturers in Queensland’ – or whatever your keywords are?

The problem is, if somebody does search for your product or service and your website isn’t optimised, you won’t be found and a potential sale is lost.

Google alone receives an estimated 200 million searches per day - that works out at a potential 73 billion searches per year! When you consider that Australia only has a population of around 21 million; that’s a lot of potential clients. And that’s without counting the searches made using MSN, Yahoo, AOL, et al.

So we know that those 73 billion searches are not all people looking to buy something, but a healthy (and potentially profitable) percentage of those are, and they are usually ready to buy there and then.

Can your business afford to miss out on these kinds of customers? Even the searches people make to find information - if they lead to your web site - could eventually turn into a sale.

Search engine optimisation doesn’t have to be expensive but can be extremely profitable. If one sale for your business could lead to hundreds of dollars then a well optimised website is essential as hundreds could quickly turn into thousands!

If you would like some advice on optimising your website for the search engines, please get in touch.

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