Jim Yu says, “As we begin 2017, the fusion of the search and content marketing disciplines has become increasingly more evident. A full 89 percent of B2B marketers (PDF) say that they use content marketing, as do 86 percent of B2C marketers, according to the Content Marketing Institute.

Additionally, over 70 percent of marketers in both groups plan on producing more content in the new year than they did in 2016. However, content only has real value if it is found and optimized, and if it converts with effective search marketing.

Search is the key driver that opens up opportunity in 2017

Research from BrightEdge (my company) found that 51 percent of traffic to websites comes from organic search. Additionally, another 10 percent comes from paid. This means that over 60 percent of the traffic on your site arrives from the search engine results pages (SERPs) alone.

While organic search is the primary driver of website traffic, the role of ads cannot be overlooked. Google has recently been taking initiatives to increase their prominence on the display page.

In early 2016, they eliminated the ads that once appeared along the sides of the SERP. Now, up to four ads may appear on the top of the page before the organic results. For some queries, this pushes the organic results below the fold”.

SEO in 2017: Seizing opportunity, evangelizing success, achieving overarching growth

Search Engine Land

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