The Importance of Ranking Well
"The lost opportunity costs associated with not ranking well in natural search have become too great for companies to ignore."
How important is ranking well in natural search? Paid search is relatively easy to invest in -X dollars in and Y dollars out - but natural search can be more difficult to invest in.
With the vast majority of clicks occurring in this space, however, it is critical for companies to realize that competing, investing, monitoring, and measuring their natural search strategies are more important than ever.
For example -CompanyX makes exacto widgets with a new customer value of $85, and a 4% conversion rate on their site. "Exacto widgets" gets 325,000 searches a month - and while CompanyX is active in paid search, they don't show up in natural search until well onto the third page. How much is CompanyX leaving on the table? By moving up to the top couple of spots, CompanyX can realize an additional $100,000/month - or $1.2 million a year. . It's hard to ignore the importance of page rank when there is such an opportunity to increase revenue.
The difference between position 6 and position 2 can be $1,500,000 a year.
So if you can compete with those other articles, other competitors, those other affiliates and aggregators that are in front of you - you can discover millions of dollars of revenue every year - without even taking into consideration brand value or the syneregy that results when you appear on the first page in both paid and natural search.
The rewards to a business to compete in natural search have become real, and have become more than a footnote - they are now an important part of any online marketers online marketing plan.
