Websites Are Meant To Be Seen...
5/9/2014
According to the results of a recent survey conducted by Ascend2, “if you don't appear on page one of the search results, you don't exist.” To assuage this, the C-suite is paying attention to their organization’s organic search rankings, with 57% of marketing and sales professionals saying that quality content creation is one of the most effective SEO strategies employed by their company.
SEO success is defined by the ability to achieve important marketing objectives. Only 14% of companies rate their SEO efforts “very successful” at achieving this.
Success Rating of Current SEO Program | |
Rating | % of Respondents |
Very successful | 14% |
Somewhat successful | 66 |
Not successful | 20 |
Source: Ascend2, April 2014 | |
Search engines look for quality content, and creating it is the most effective SEO tactic, says the report, followed by researching and managing the keywords used in SEO content.
Most Effective SEO Tactics Used in Respondent’s Company | |
Effective tactic | % of Respondents |
Quality content creation | 57% |
Keyword research/management | 46 |
Frequent website updating | 37 |
Social media integration | 34 |
Frequent blogging | 28 |
Link building | 25 |
Local search optimization | 17 |
Mobile search optimization | 9 |
Source: Ascend2, April 2014 | |
SEO is a time-intensive task requiring a specific skill-set, says the report. For many organizations, budget and skill limitations are the top obstacles to overcome.
Most Challenging Obstacles to Achieve SEO Objectives | |
Challenge | % of Respondents |
Limited SEO budget | 44% |
Limited SEO skills in-house | 40 |
Understanding search algorithms | 32 |
Lack of effective strategy | 30 |
Attributing sales to SEO | 29 |
Optimizing content with keywords | 27 |
Lack of quality content | 26 |
Identifying new keywords | 18 |
Source: Ascend2, April 2014 | |
Quality content creation is perceived as being both highly effective and seen as one of the most difficult SEO tactics to execute as seen by 47% of the respondents. Other difficult tactics to execute include link building, frequent blogging, and frequent website updating.
Most Difficult vs. Most Effective SEO Tactics to Execute (% of Respondents) | ||
| % of Respondents | |
Task | Most Difficult | Most Effective |
Quality Content Creation | 47% | 57% |
Link building | 44 | 25 |
Frequent blogging | 32 | 28 |
Keyword research/management | 29 | 46 |
Frequent website updating | 29 | 37 |
Social media integration | 26 | 34 |
Source: Ascend2, April 2014 | ||
The effect of keywords on search rankings and the impact of call-to-action offers on conversion rates are viewed as the two most useful SEO metrics (44% of respondents say each is among the most useful metrics for tracking and analyzing SEO performance).
Most Useful Metrics for Analysis and Tracking SEO Performance | |
Metric | % of Respondents |
Search metrics by keyword | 44% |
Call to action conversions | 44 |
Traffic/visits by keyword | 41 |
Traffic/visits by source | 41 |
Total website traffic/visits | 37 |
Website visit duration/engagement | 28 |
Source: Ascend2, April 2014 | |
The report is based on data from a survey of 442 marketing and sales professionals from around the world (63% US-based, 16% Europe, 6% Canada, 15% other). Additional study demographics include:
Study Demographics | |
Employee Size | % of Respondents |
< 10 | 40% |
10-100 | 27 |
101-1000 | 21 |
> 1000 | 12 |
Role In The Company | |
Owner or officer | 42% |
Marketing or sales management | 35 |
Marketing or sales staff | 15 |
Other | 9 |
Primary Business Category | |
Agency/marketing services | 33% |
B2B (other than agency) | 32 |
B2C | 16 |
Both B2B and B2C | 19 |
Source: Ascend2, April 2014 | |