The Value of Organic Search Volume for E-Commerce and Digital Marketing

According to 2022 data from firstpage.com , the top organic search result wins 39.6 percent of click throughs, with the second result getting 18.4 percent and the third and fourth getting 10.1 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively.

According to their analysis, the top ad only receives 2.1 percent of click throughs and the second ad gets 1.6 percent of click throughs. WordStream estimates the average paid ad click through is only about two percent .

Does organic search matter for e-commerce and digital marketing? Undoubtedly. The data also suggests pursuing an affordable SEO strategy can pay significant dividends in the long term.

Blogs, content creation and SEO are cheap compared to the massive paid ad spends businesses of all sizes dump into Google and Facebook ad campaigns . While those ad campaigns likely play an important role in your business’s digital marketing strategy, relying solely on paid ads can significantly weaken your brand’s digital footprint.

Professional content writing and SEO isn’t free, but it’s also not as cost prohibitive as paid ads.

Competing for the highest volume search terms might not be the strategy with the highest likelihood of success. You might have competitors with massive content generation budgets who have been churning out blogs for a decade or more. If you’re a small business just starting to dabble in SEO, you shouldn’t expect to achieve a high page-one SERP showing right out of the gate.

That doesn’t mean you can’t reach the upper ranks of SERP for the lower volume but still relevant search inquiries.

In SEO, Research Matters

There aren’t undiscovered lands at this point in the internet’s history – at least not until someone invents the next big frontier. Is it possible you could discover a low-competition keyword with high search volume and an excellent conversion rate? It’s unlikely.

That doesn’t mean there are no opportunities. Many businesses, especially the big competitors in your space, have the dollars and content farms necessary to go after the high-volume, high-competition keywords. They may spend little to no time or effort going after low-volume search inquiries.

Low-volume keywords are frequently niche industry terms, which means they may be especially relevant to your customers. Depending on how specialized your business is, it’s possible your competitors have little to no presence in that niche.

If there’s any uncharted territory on the web, it’s likely to be found in low-volume searches. Your business can potentially stake a claim with a very modest SEO investment.

Long-Term Benefits of SEO

Paid ads play an important role in lead generation – primarily by providing fast traffic. What you spend on ads this month won’t pay dividends next month or the month after.

The opposite is true of SEO. Content is a long-term investment. The more of it you have, the more traction your brand and website will get. Relevant, evergreen content may continue driving traffic for years in the future, and it all adds weight to your web presence.

When you spend $5,000 on ads this month, that money is gone. When you put $5,000 into optimizations and content creation, that money will continue working for years in the future.

Whether you’re running an e-commerce business or any other kind of small business, a lot of your marketing dollars are spent on short-term advertising campaigns. Whether you’re paying for radio ads, TV spots, social ads, over-the-top ads or print ads, you can expect a short-term ROI. SEO is one of the only marketing investments that offers a long-term ROI.

Unfortunately, long-term ROI scares a lot of business owners. It’s easy to wrap your head around spending $500 and being able to attribute $700 of sales to that investment. It’s harder to determine how many leads years down the road are attributable to the SEO efforts of today.

Just because the benefit isn’t immediate or as easy to track doesn’t mean the impact isn’t there.

Are You Ready to Reach New Customers with Revamped SEO?

Businesses should look for marketing partners that take a holistic view of the advertising landscape.

We’re not telling you to only put your money into SEO, paid ads or digital in general. What we do suggest is taking an analytical view of your industry, what your competitors are doing and where there are cost-effective opportunities that will allow you to maximize the return on your marketing dollars.

SEO might not offer the immediate lead generation benefits of alternative digital marketing tools, but it does have the potential to be the most valuable long-term digital marketing investment.

If you’d like to learn how SEO can work for your business, contact REV77 today .