Did you know that nearly 1 billion searches are conducted everyday? In fact, in today’s world, the vast majority of internet users’ online experiences begin with visits to search engines and 92 percent of online adults in the United States perform at least one search per day using search engines. As consumers are increasingly using the internet, and more specifically search engines, to find the products and services that they need, effective SEO, or search engine optimization, is absolutely an essential piece of online marketing, also known as internet marketing.

Studies show that when consumers utilize internet search engines they typically click on the first link that meets their criteria and are unlikely to scroll through pages and pages of results. Therefore, the higher a website appears in search engine rankings, the more likely a consumer is to visit that website. It is also crucial that a website appear in the organic, as opposed to sponsored, results as consumers very often ignore sponsored results, instead clicking on only organic links. SEO, which raises a website in these organic rankings, is thus a crucial part of effective online marketing. Studies also show that costumers typically research a product via a search engine prior to visiting a company website, making SEO all the more relevant. In fact, over half of consumers, approximately 58 percent , start researching a product or service by using a search engine, while only a quarter begin by visiting company websites and only about a fifth inquire via social media platforms. Furthermore, SEO is also quite cost effective. Inbound leads, such as search engine optimization, cost 61 percent lower than outbound leads, such as cold calling.

When considering search engines, it is crucial to note that Google rankings are especially important as Google controls a considerable component of the internet search engine market. Google is perhaps best known for its “Google Doodles.” Interestingly, the very first Google “doodle” dates back to 1998, and depicts the Burning Man. It was intended as a sort of out of office message to let people know that co founders Brin and Page were at the famous Nevada festival. Google uses The “PageRank” algorithm to rank search engine results, a process is named for Larry Page, the co founder.