Articles

Making Search Engines Pay

Internet Search Engines are our link to the world wide web, they are the most commonly used websites for the majority of UK web surfers. Nearly all of us have either Google or another search engine set as our default website in our web browser.

In a recent survey of 1600 consumers, 97 percent said they frequently use search engines to find businesses, however 71 percent said that they were actually unaware of how the search results are compiled.

The conclusion was that British consumers trust main search results over sponsored listings, with paid for links being regarded as more suspicious. 33 percent believed these listings to be 'less worthy' and 'less useful' than the naturally found listings.

As consumers we know what we like and that is natural organic search results. 66 percent said that they always pay attention first to the main results. 40 percent of women and 34 percent of men will consciously ignore sponsored links when they appear.

These results show that it has never been so important for UK businesses to be having well written search engine compliant sites built. There is clearly no worse scenario than investing thousands in a beautiful website that is effectively invisible to the public.

The results of another recent online survey found that many businesses are failing to use search engines as effectively as they could and that 19 percent were under the impression that the order of search results cannot be influenced by the website publishers themselves.

If you require a website that performs better with the search engines such as Google or you already have a site that is not performing as well as you would like, then call Iconet today on 01527 837 873 to see how we can help to improve your business on the internet.

Simon O'Carroll, Technical Director, Iconet