Embrace organic search to maximise sales this festive season

Image credit: Andrew Neel on Unsplash.

A brand’s organic search ranking, or search engine optimisation (SEO), determines where it appears when would-be customers search for the products or services a business offers.

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David Jenkins  14 Jan 2019

Trustworthy user-generated content

Consumers don’t scroll through pages and pages of results, they place their trust in the results ranking at the top of the first page – and that’s where a business needs to be. The hard truth is that if your brand is not in the top five search results, it probably won’t be seen at all.

According to Google’s ‘Webmasters blog’ and as part of its ongoing updates to search algorithms, the search engine will no longer display review-rich snippets for local businesses and organisations.

In line with ensuring quality, transparent search results, these will be removed as they could be perceived as ‘self-serving’ and not in the best interest of consumers.

Local search optimisation boosts organic search results

Location Bank  20 Jun 2017

Results will be driven by trustworthy user-generated content rather than potentially-biased reviews, which will have an impact on a business’s ability to rank higher on the results page, highlighted recently by Mordy Oberstein from Rank Ranger.

Brands would be wise to focus on their company’s Google My Business (GMB) review management strategy to increase their local search rankings, as the top three results appearing above organic web rankings make up as much as 15% of how Google ranks a local business.

Despite this, most brands still direct the bulk of their online media spend to paid media – which accounts for, on average, 15–30% of clicks. By insisting that media spend to be allocated solely to paid search results, they’re ignoring the bulk of the available clicks and potential customers, and it’s clear that no business can afford to disregard more than half its potential client base.

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Savvy online consumers

There are also brands who only use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram advertising to attract consumers. However, they’re effectively ignoring the massive pool of savvy online consumers who appreciate (and actively look for) an honest review that ranks a brand highly in an organic Google search; more highly than a paid-for advert.

First time I see knowledge cards on Google linking directly to a "buy this product" page! It doesn't come with an "ad" sticker so this may be an organic search result? Not sure I believe that. pic.twitter.com/6hhv3E5cBU

— Claudia Hauff (@CharlotteHase) November 13, 2019

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And with Google updating its algorithms as much as several times every day, it’s simply impossible for a multitasking business owner to achieve the same level of results without a specialist team dedicated to tracking and decoding Google’s tweaks, quirks and ever-evolving features.

Brands wanting to reap the rewards of the upcoming shopper-rush must rethink how they allocate their digital marketing budgets to make sure that they’re capturing the biggest possible audience.

They need to find better ways of balancing between the 60% of clicks from conventional ad spend, and 40% of users who prefer trustworthy non-paid resources to inform their buying decisions.