Search engines like Google are powerful forces in the internet today, making finding information quicker and easier for everyone. For businesses, this means both the opportunity to reach more people and the threat of increased competition.

As a small-to-medium enterprise a search marketing campaign can prove ideal for getting a steady flow of traffic on the smallest of advertising budgets. Learn how you can improve your website's performance on search engines while avoiding the most common pitfalls.

Why search is important to shoppers

Search engines allow shoppers to find the detailed information they need to make their decisions, from product reviews to price comparisons and more. This has made the internet the first place that people go when they want to buy. Half of all online purchases in the UK start with someone conducting a search.

Why search is important to sellers

Today, internet search allows traffic to flow to worthy sites, even those with nearly no marketing budget at all. Furthermore, traffic that comes from search engines has double the conversion rate of that coming from other online sources. This is opening up the market, and giving small companies more chances to get noticed.

How search engines work

Search engines want to display the most helpful and relevant results to their users. To get ranked well in the engines, you need to ensure that you can provide this type of high-quality content. Important aspects that attract search engine traffic include:

1. Research. Discover which search phrases people are using to find sites like yours. Use online keyword research tools, or hire a search engine expert to help you. Below we've highlighted some examples from both B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business).

B2C. A company selling GIFTS online might be surprised to see that the phrase 'promotional gift' was searched over 28,000 times in one month on just one search engine.

B2B. A company providing IT support might find it useful to know that the phrase 'IT outsourcing' is a more popular search than 'it support service'

2. Content. Useful, accessible content is the meat of your website. Search engines favour content that provides real value to readers while incorporating those often-used search phrases.

3. Architecture. Your site should be cleanly coded without programming errors, and should have strong navigation that helps your visitors find information quickly.