SEO spend up 60% as UK companies increase focus on search

According to recent research UK companies have raised the level of investment in (PPC) Paid search and (SEO) search engine optimisation. As we emerge cautiously from recession the number of UK companies saying they are planning to increase spending on SEO alone over the next 12 months has increased to over 60%, showing a rise of 5% from this time last year.

Paid search is also very much on the increase with 52% of UK companies planning to increase spend in this area over the coming 12 months, this figure up from 45% last year. Interestingly the increase in PPC is higher than that of SEO, which we think shows newcomers to search dipping their toe in the water for the first time perhaps? PPC is always the first port of call and often the fastest route to page one in early stage online marketing, As we know traffic from SEO is much better and sustainable but does take time in order to achieve rankings ethically.

Whilst it’s reported that spend is on the UP for the majority of UK companies, it has to be noted that 14% of companies say they are planning to reduce PPC budgets but only 4% plan to spend less on SEO, again we believe these figures reflect the quality of traffic that SEO/Natural rankings brings and what could be a contributing factor is the reported increase in CPC (cost per click), something UP search have experienced recently especially within the pensions and finance sectors on behalf of our clients. Although as we have always experienced conversion rates and traffic are always higher form SEO as opposed to PPC.

The UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report, published by Econsultancy in association with digital agency Guava for the fourth year running, is based on the largest annual UK survey of search marketers and is regarded as a bellwether for the search industry.

Econsultancy’s UK Research Director Linus Gregoriadis said: “Search marketing was pretty resilient during the recession but there has nonetheless been a marked increase in both SEO and paid search investment this year.

“Companies continue to report an increased media cost for paid search, and in particular for Google AdWords, but this has not stopped the majority of companies increasing their Google investment. Sixty per cent of company respondents said they are investing more on Google than they were a year ago, compared to only 10% who are spending less.”

More than two thirds (69%) of search advertisers using Google say that prices for the keywords they routinely bid on have gone up in the last year. An even higher proportion of agencies (71%) say this is the case.

The research, based on a survey of 500 client-side marketers and agencies, also found that 65% of companies are planning to increase their spending on social media marketing over the next 12 months, an increase from 48% in 2009.

Search marketers are increasingly focusing on social media marketing because of the opportunities to increase traffic and links.

More than half of companies (56%) are planning to boost social media budgets by more than 20%, while 15% are planning to increase their social media spending by more than 100%.

Guava Sales Director Martin Dinham said: “We are pleased to see that the SEM Market is holding up as, even in a difficult economic climate, businesses recognise that SEO and PPC continue to deliver return on investment.

“There are also some interesting sub trends identified, notably the rise of social media and the high proportion of paid search users who continue to rely on manual management of their campaigns.  We hope that the marketplace finds this fourth year of the report useful.”

Other key findings:

• The vast majority of companies (83%) carrying out search engine marketing pay to advertise on Google, although this figure has dropped 2% since last year. Use of Yahoo has declined more sharply, from 44% last year (and 49% in 2008) to 36% this year.
• Microsoft, which launched Bing last year, has fared better. Just over a third of companies (34%) now use its search engine for paid search compared to 30% last year.
• The vast majority of companies (81%) now market themselves on Twitter, making this the most widely used social media website for marketing and putting it slightly ahead of Facebook (78%). The proportion of companies who say they use Twitter for marketing has increased massively from 49% last year, and just 3% in 2008.
• Less than half of companies (45%) carrying out paid search marketing are using a third party bid management technology for their PPC activity.

The importance of online relationship management

Customer review sites are a useful way to find out about products and services, and for the businesses themselves they can be a valuable source of publicity. But a number of spam reviews sweeping the web are damaging local firms who depend on them to help make or break their reputation.

ORM (online relationship management)

Are the days of personal recommendations over?

Prior to the evolution of the internet it was common place to seek a reliable and trustworthy recommendation from a friend or colleague, this may still be the case in certain instances however nowadays many people use the wide range of review tools available online, such as company websites and review forums to help them decide where to go and who to use for a particular service or product.

Customer review sites are an extremely useful way of seeking user reviews of companies or products and for business owners they can be an invaluable source of publicity, but as usage continues to grow online and they way we consume and purchase goods becomes more and more internet based there are a number of spam reviews sweeping the web which are damaging not only small companies reputations but also having a negative effect on bottom line profits.

Many companies rely on such review sites and portals to drum up business. UP as part of our SEO services use such sites in order to generate positive and constructive advice on behalf of clients attracting both brand engagement at early stage search to direct interaction at later stage or “buying” stage.

When any business comes to us they are after one thing, “exposure”, the more consumers the business or brand are in front of the more customers the business acquires…sound simple? Well it is to a certain degree. More first page results on search engines, more exposure, more enquires, more business, more money, more profit….there is unfortunately a downside to this.

Christian Mcginty of UPSearch commented,

“When a client comes to us for Search marketing we try as best we can to inform the client of all areas of what we do, SEO or search engine optimisation now a days isn’t just about ranking well on the engines, rankings are a given as far as I’m concerned. It’s about managing the customer online as a whole. You have to take into account that although your client will experience a positive effect from online marketing, increased enquires, leads and customers through to their site, unfortunately in this day and age and with competition being so stiff, you also have to be increasingly aware that with the use of review sites and user generated content being on the up, they possibly may experience some form of negative: an increase in leads and customers is clearly an excellent position to be, but as we all know there are certain people that wouldn’t be happy if you were to give them the moon on a stick to coin a phrase. There is also the element of what we call “the green eyed monster effect”, we have had instances where competitors don’t like the fact that our client is in good positions on search engines and have been known to post negative reviews, although with some investigation this can be tracked via the IP address but there is no real way of stopping this happening, part of the SEO process in this day and age should always include ORM (online relationship management). This is the process of neutralising any negative comment and replacing with truthful honest positive comment.”

There have in the past been instances of companies complaining about negative content directly to Google, Googles responses have in some cases been to persue the case through the courts, although for most companies this proves to be a long and expensive process. They also say that they use software to automatically detect spam reviews but despite this spam reviews still get through. They have stated that they are working to improve the system, but it wanted to balance identifying spam without removing genuine comments. Many business’s have also claimed that their request to have fake reviews have been ignored and feel that they have been left powerless to stop bad reviews appearing against their name.

As any online agency should be aware its not only their job to ensure clients are ranking well, conversion rates are at the maximum and the client is happy, its also their responsibility to be the clients brand guardian online”

Innovating to beat the spammers

Chris Emmins of Kwikchex, a website which helps companies to remove fake reviews, is critical of Google.

“Google have provided this resource – you would think that with all their billions, they could pick up on something like that. But apparently not. If Google want to use reviews, they have to do a little more than they’re doing, because this is child’s play to pick up,”

He explains that many victims know who the perpetrator is, “a personal attack, say, from an ex-employee.”

Mr Emmins suggests the introduction of a traffic light system as a way of grading reviews: “The more information a reviewer gives to verify their comments, the more credibility the review is awarded,” he says.

The Review Centre, a website which encourages a community of reviewers to rate and slate many types of products, also has to deal with its fair share of bogus comments.

“One of the ways that our pattern checker works is that it looks at the computer address the review was written from, and if for example that address has written five other reviews for the same item that will be flagged up as suspicious,” said Glen Collins, head of The Review Centre.

“If you write something which is written in a similar way – same punctuation, same grammatical errors – to other reviews, that will be picked up.”

He says anything suspicious is picked up “and put into a pen for us to check.”

Wilmslow Design and Build to appear on TV Show

As well as an excellent number of enquiries through their website, one of our clients Wilmslow Design and Build (WDB) a specialist in loft conversions and house extensions in the South Manchester and Cheshire areas, have been Googled by a TV production company, WDB have now entered into an agreement with the TV company to film one of their projects in Hale, Cheshire at the end of July 2010. Mr Bowen of WDB commented

“The production company found us on Google and stated they chose us due to how our site/company came across, they said they immediately felt we would fit the bill as we presented ourselves in a professional way, its a great opportunity for the company to get some brand coverage on national TV. Which goes to show if we didn’t have the presence online that we have we wouldn’t have been given the opportunity”

Filming of the project begins next week and the show is due to air in the autumn.