Search Engine Marketing - finding the balanced approach
An article from “The Marketing Leaders”
http://www.themarketingleaders.com/articles/may/sam_brownfield.htm
SEM spend rose in 2005 to £598 million, but its own set of problems have been brought with it…and traditional marketers are found guilty. Why and what can be done to solve these issues?
With the Office of National Statistics (October 2005) estimating that 91% of adults who have ever used the Internet have also used a search engine and that 86 per cent of searches have an intent to buy, the commercial case for search engine marketing is clear. Search engine marketing is now growing exponentially and spend in the U.K. rose to £598 million in 2005, with as much as half a billion pounds spent on sponsored paid-for listings.
I’ve spent a lot but where is my homepage?
It is not uncommon for board directors to castigate their marketing departments because “When I search for my site I can’t find it listed on the opening page”.
However, the success of search engine marketing (SEM) has brought with it its own set of problems, primarily because it is still such a widely misunderstood medium. Traditional marketers are particularly guilty and it is not uncommon for board directors to castigate their marketing departments because, “when I search for my site I can’t find it listed on the opening page”. If only it were so simple. After all, whilst there are over 30,000 search engines operating across the Internet, just ten major search engine engines account for 95 per cent of all searches with 70 per cent of these performed on Google (TNS Analysts, 2006). Everybody is competing for the same space.
Flawed arguments
Currently there are two logical but flawed arguments about how best to obtain a high search engine ranking (SER). The first states that at the very outset, a website should be designed and built with a primary purpose of triggering key word searches and gaining a high SER. Whilst this might appear a logical strategy, a site won’t work if it is built solely on this premise – it will be severely compromised both aesthetically and functionally.
By contrast, to build a site purely in terms of what will be pleasing and functional to a customer poses a different set of problems. Namely, the site could be constructed and programmed in a way that discourages and blocks search engines when they are undertaking key word searches. The resultant SER might be far lower than the site warrants.
Why do we have a website?
From a digital specialist’s point of view, some marketers are now so obsessed with their search engine ranking that they are losing the perspective of why they built and have a website in the first place. On one level it is important to have a high ranking - but it is just as important to have a broader strategy about what function the website serves in the first place. In and of itself, a high ranking is meaningless unless it is integrated into a wider strategy.
Such a strategy involves asking the questions ‘why is the website there’? And ‘does the site convert visitors to paying customers?’ If a site can answer both questions directly and successfully only then should a high search engine ranking (SER) become the secondary goal. It’s a balanced approach because it takes into account all the factors at play in a company’s online presence and looks at it as a coordinated, holistic whole. After all, what is the point of having a high SER and stunning visitor numbers when (a) very few convert into paying customers and (b) few return? A high SER is simply one facet of a company’s online presence, not the be all and end all.
Another major error that companies commit when looking at SEM strategies is that they fail to understand the difference between paid-for listings and organic search engine optimisation (natural ranking). Paid-for or sponsored links cost a company each time a link is clicked and they are a particularly powerful advertising medium when a site’s own natural or organic ranking is not high enough to give it a prominent position.
Paid-for listings should therefore really only be considered as a tactical tool to give a site visitor uplift and increase traffic particularly when a site is launched or when it is subsequently revamped. If paid-for listings are used continuously, it is an indictment of the quality of the website in the first place as proper long term search engine optimisation and good content should really make paid-for listings redundant.
SEM can play ticks on you
An example of how SEM can play tricks with digital planners is Freeman’s online catalogue. Type in the word ‘Freemans’ in Google and the first ranked website is Freemans’ online catalogue. Whilst this is great news for Freemans, what is perhaps less good news is that the only paid-for-listing is the same company. Given that Freemans already has the number one ranking in the search engine listings, a paid-for-listing is simply unnecessary and moreover costs Freemans revenue each time someone uses the pay-per-click link as opposed to the free link. It represents an unnecessary waste of money and is a classic case of what happens when paid-for listings and search engine optimisation are not considered as part of a joint coordinated strategy.
According to technology research company Forrester, there is currently a surge in investment in the arena of commercial searches that include paid listings, contextual search, site optimisation and paid inclusions. As search engine marketing becomes a marketing discipline in its own right, some Blue Chip clients are even advertising for in-house search engine specialists. However, in the stampede for high SER, companies are forgetting the most important rule in website development and marketing – content.
As advertising spend moves remorselessly into digital marketing, the real winners won’t be those that necessarily have a high SER or high visitor traffic. They will be those sites that combine good content along with real incentives to purchase. Follow that golden rule and accompany it with intelligent keyword layouts and a high natural SER should automatically result.
By Sam Brownfield
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