Backbone Media, Inc., a leader in search engine optimization and website design services, today announced that its firm grew by more than 100% in 2004. Company’s president attributes dramatic growth to a trend that has online advertisers embracing search engine optimization and going beyond pay per click advertising.

Boston MA, November 2, 2004 – The recent buzz surrounding Google’s IPO and its surging stock price has brought attention back to a very hot sector of Internet marketing known as search engine optimization (SEO) a.k.a. search engine marketing (SEM). As an internet marketing firm that focuses its services on website design and search engine marketing strategies, Backbone Media, Inc. is feeling the increasing effect of the boom with over 100% growth in 2004.

(Source: Wall Street Journal, Nov. 2 2004)

Backbone’s president, Stephen Turcotte attributes the dramatic growth to “advertiser awareness that search engine marketing works best when it’s integrated into the entire Internet marketing strategy”. He says “Our search engine optimization strategies go way beyond bidding for clicks and require an expertise at marketing strategy, management, search engine optimization, and website design optimization. Very few of our competitors can offer all of that from under one roof but the ones that can are slammed right now.”

There are essentially two ways to target market to the search audience. Advertisers can Pay Per Click (PPC) to be positioned in the search results for specific groups of keywords and (or) they can optimize their website to be listed in the non paid Editorial Search engine listings. Either way, top search positioning can provide advertisers with a steady stream of qualified leads with relatively less cost than all other direct marketing methods.

Advertisers view pay per click (PPC) search advertising as the red of a bull’s eye. It enables them to target the enormous search audience of Google, Yahoo and MSN at various stages of the purchase cycle. The simple text ad can be tracked like a banner and tracking data can include information about the search phrase used and if the search that lead to a conversion point (sale, lead or contact). The efficiencies and relative low cost of PPC advertising have made it very popular. However, popularity has its price, high demand has driven up the average CPC (Cost Per Click) by 24% this year (Source: JupiterResearch, July 2004) and is expected to continue increase into the foreseeable future.

The escalating prices are a testament to the effectiveness of search advertising, but they are prompting many advertisers to look beyond the red of the bull’s eye and into the yellow circle that surrounds it. The yellow of the bull’s eye is editorial search engine optimization tactics that place clients in the editorial search engine listings (a.k.a. organic results). Recent Forrester studies have shown, especially in search engines like Google, that users respond and trust editorial listings more than pay per click or sponsored listing.

That’s where Backbone comes in. A common theme with their new prospects is that paid campaigns are working very well, but they want to put a cap on search ad spending and gain more traffic through editorial search listings. Backbone advocates an integrated website design, development, search engine optimization and Internet marketing strategy. The overall strategy centers on making the website more relevant and open to search engines, thus making their clients less reliant on paid search traffic. This is accomplished with good old-fashioned search engine marketing techniques such as website optimization, content optimization, linking, and newer techniques such as press release distribution with PRWeb / eMediawire and white paper distribution with KnowledgeStorm. Effective implementation of these tactics creates top editorial positions and increases editorial search traffic, while allowing the company to decrease its paid search spending.

From Bomb to Boom – Search Engine Marketing Firm on Rise with Online Advertising

Boston MA, Nov. 2, 2004 – A variety of market trends and world events have combined to help search engine marketing emerge in 2004 as the best way to target online consumers.

• Internet Users Size: There are 182 million Internet users throughout the US and Canada and 605 million internet users worldwide (Compiled by Nua Internet Surveys)
• Search Utilization: Of the 270 million men, women and children in the US it is estimated that 43% use search engines on a regular basis (Source: Marketing Sherpa / SEMPO)
• Top Players: The top three websites are search engines Yahoo, Google and MSN (Source: Alexa.com).
• Website Ratings: The audience size and preeminence of these properties have made search engines major media outlets, rivaling the highest rated TV shows. The beauty of the Internet is that it reaches a large percentage of its audience while they are at work doing business. The work audience has less distractions from TV and radio broadcast.
• Self Survey: When was the last time you used the Internet to research a purchase (work or home related)?

How Consumers Search for Products Online
(Source: Overture.com)

The success of search is playing out in the public markets. As the dot bombs were imploding in 2001, the search industry took a collective hit. But look at what’s happened since then:

• Yahoo stock (yhoo) up 92% over last twelve months.
• Yahoo Market Cap of $47.9 billion (Compare to McDonald’s Market Cap below)
• McDonald’s Market Cap $36.2 billion.
• Google’s stock up (goog) 81% since its debut on August 19 (less than three months).

Yahoo Stock (Last 5 years)

Google Stock (Last 3 months)

The Rise of Search Engine Marketing

The boom of search advertising started in the post 9/11 economy when mainstream advertisers were forced to stretch their online advertising dollars and look for better ways of targeting Internet users. At the same time, Google and Overture were perfecting their search advertising systems, and more companies were utilizing the online capabilities to track visitors and leads. This innovation enabled analytic advertisers to draw a direct line between searches and sales leads. Search was delivering far better response and conversion rates than banners.

Advertiser awareness grew. By 2003, most mainstream advertisers had read the Internet marketing reports like the one by Piper Jaffray that placed “Search” as having the lowest cost per acquisition of any advertising vehicle. Or the 2002 Cross Media Study by DoubleClick that used Neilson/Net Ratings and MRI to estimate that “41 percent of U.S. consumers used search engines to research a purchase,” compared to 10 and 9 percent using a print and a TV ad respectively.

This new awareness encouraged online advertising agencies to move away from poor performing banners and embrace search as an additional media for online advertising. Together agencies and advertisers became more comfortable with the less glitzy yet effective advertising medium. This is witnessed in 2003 by the declining cost of banner ads (CPMs), which can be linked to decreasing click rates and increased inventory.

(source: Wall Street Journal, Nov. 2 2004)

The new awareness is not a fluke either. According to a 2004 Online Advertising report by JupiterResearch, paid search was the only bright spot in online advertising from 2001 to 2003, and the market will continue to grow by 34% to reach $2.6 billion in 2004 and $4.4 billion by 2007.

Search Engine Marketing is an Essential Component for any Company’s Online Advertising Mix

As many companies have already realized, search engine optimization has become an essential component in fulfilling their online marketing needs. The search engines have become a way of life. According to a study by Fittkau & Maab, 95% of Internet users use search engines – 2/3 of them on a regular basis – no wonder Google has created such tremendous sensation after a mere 6 years in business. But growth in search engine popularity is not the only key to Backbone Media’s success. Their commitment and dedication to providing clients with custom-tailored strategies, integrated solutions and optimum results are the qualities that ultimately set this Boston search engine marketing firm apart from the rest.

About Backbone Media, Inc.

Backbone Media’s mission is to help companies reach their active buyers online and profit from their online investment. Since 1996 Backbone Media, Inc. has been helping companies integrate high impact website design with innovative and effective search engine and Internet marketing strategies. Backbone Media, Inc. is headquartered in Westborough, MA. For more information please visit www.backbonemedia.com.