Here are 8 compelling reasons why you should include search engine marketing in your online marketing mix and the very real competitive advantage it can give your business...
1) The #1 way people find websites
Numerous surveys have shown that search engines and directories are the most popular method used to find websites. More than 80% of Internet users rely on search engines & directories as their preferred method for locating websites. (GVU 10th WWW User Survey)
2) People use search engines - a lot
The majority of Web users search the web every day (57%). The only thing done online more often than using search engines is checking email - 81% check email every day.(Statistical Research Inc Feb 2000)
3) Billions of pages. Millions of searches
There are more than 320 million searches are made through search engines and directories each day. Google alone had over 55 billion searches during 2002. The exponential growth of the Web means there are now billions of web pages and consequently this has increased peoples reliance on search engines as a way of locating information online.
4) Qualified traffic ready to buy
Traffic search engines and directories deliver to websites is highly qualified because users are actively searching for the information. This is the major difference to traffic delivered by banner advertising.
5) More effective than banners
There are 5 – 6 times more online purchases made from traffic delivered by search engines compared to banner advertising. The cost for online marketing campaigns using search engines is significantly lower than that for banner advertising. Not only are search engines highly effective online marketing tools – they’re also cost efficient.
6) Marketing managers "know" they work
Given the above facts, it’s not surprising that 66% of web marketers rated search engine marketing as the top method for driving traffic to their web sites. Second was email marketing (54%). (American Direct Marketing Association survey - Aug 2000)
7) The experts say they work
A report by Forrester Research stated "search engines reach valuable, motivated, and ready customers. To capitalize on search as a marketing tool, marketers should shift acquisition email and ad dollars to search..." (Forrester Research - April 2002)
And finally here is a very compelling reason to include search engine marketing from your online marketing mix...

Competitors inaction - your opportunity
Nearly 46% of marketers surveyed by CyberAtlas Research allocate less than 0.5% of their annual marketing budgets on search engine optimization (SEO) services. Only 10 percent spend more than 25% of their marketing budgets on increasing their visibility on the Web.