SEO will be the primary focus during the downturn

A new survey validates the importance of maintaining SEO effort during the downturn.

The survey, by Conductor, had 317 respondents drawn from Conductor’s extended network across a range of industries, including B2B (24%), Retail (12%), Healthcare (11%), Media (10%) and others (travel and hospitality, consumer technology, financial services, insurance, automotive, e-commerce and manufacturing).

Goals remain the same or up with a lower budget.

The study shows that the outbreak is adversely impacting budgets. However, the majority of these survey respondents — most of whom are hands-on practitioners — said their budgets were only decreasing slightly or remaining the same. Only 20% were seeing budgets “decrease greatly.”

Source: The Impact of COVID-19 on Marketing (2020) - IAB

Asked, “Will SEO be more or less important during this time?” 63% said SEO would gain in importance either slightly (34%) or steeply (29%). Only 5% responded that SEO would decrease in importance.

Organic search, the top channel?

Organic search was seen by 66% as the top-performing channel last year, followed by paid search (50%) and email (50%). Social media was named the top-performing channel by just 14%. These perceptions drive future marketing decisions in a downturn.

Source: The Impact of COVID-19 on Marketing (2020) - IAB

In the event of a global recession, most marketers say they would, lower the spending and invest more on SEO, raising the ROI targets for marketing decisions. Only a minority of 25% said they would layoff.

Source: The Impact of COVID-19 on Marketing (2020) - IAB

Why do we care ?

The significant finding of this survey is that organic search s still regarded as the top-performing channel. And it is a long term strategy with lasting impact on the business. So, it is about planting the seeds and building for the future.

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