In late 1998, Elliot Anderssen from Alcatel at the University of Toronto said, “The real value of this type of marketing (Internet marketing) is the captive public factor. Remember, there is no communication channel in this industry that could manage millions of people looking for something.” Anderssen had a valuable point, although it took a while to understand what he “looking for something” really meant.

People who open an Internet browser or search engine are going to engage in a hunt that will bring a result as a part of a motivational activity; they do not visit the search engine necessarily to have fun, to relax, or to find some entertainment. Let’s mention that 0.6% of domestic Internet users buy something online, and 86% of those come from Seanrch engines. On another hand 1.1% of work users buy something online, and 91% of those come from search engines.

This information is fundamental in understanding the added value of Internet marketing. Never before has any type of marketing activity secured a qualified market like the Internet does. If we expand this to a global scale, we can see that from the 320,000 daily average online buyers, around 275,000 will come from a search engines. Imagine the extraordinary potential of a new business channel that could virtually manages an average of 100 million focused buyers per year.

Search engine traffic is called the “focused market,” since people sit in front of the computer with a defined objective (the “looking for something” factor). On the other hand, traditional promotional channels make contact with the “unfocused market,” people who access them to obtain entertainment or learn information. This market is not necessarily interested in “looking for something.” They could potentially become buyers, but they might not.

How many people reading the newspaper or watching TV are interested in the advertising? Leolen Lipovetsky, from Eye4u.com, during his speech at Westwood College in Anaheim, California, emphasized this point about today’s advertising landscape. “The market’s interest has been the most important component in any promotional process. Online buyers have initiated the process and they are far advanced on it at the time they arrive to the right e-commerce site.”
Search engines manage about 100 million online buyers per year, with the main objective of Internet marketing being to capitalize on this impressive segment of recognized online buyers. In ten years, the amount of online buyers will be around one billion per year. Try to understand the power of a market that size, and you will see that SEO will be the most powerful business generation tools of the future.

About the writer: Miguel Todaro (www.migueltodaro.com) is the author of the book Internet Marketing Methods Revealed, published by Atlantic Publishers Company. He has been advisor of important corporations in marketing, multimedia and e-commerce projects. He is an expert in software development, with strong background in graphic design, multimedia programming and marketing. In 1997 he developed one of the first automotive e-commerce projects on the net, for the Italian company Fiat Auto International Corporation. As a consultant he helped major organizations such as UNICEF, AIGA, Oracle and IBM.
He also developed experimental multimedia e-learning ventures for different companies in North America, including BP and Methanex Corp.