plusLINK Blog

The Truth About SEO

Posted on 02. Dec, 2009 by combimish in SEO

I’ve been in the busi­ness of SEO for about 12 years and have worked with hun­dreds of com­pa­nies of all sizes. I can­not be any­thing but biased towards the ben­e­fits of opti­miz­ing web sites to improve vis­i­bil­ity in search and the com­mer­cial out­comes that can result.

For some, Search Engine Opti­miza­tion is a favorite whip­ping boy. Of course, mar­keters that have expe­ri­ence with proper SEO efforts and con­sul­tants, dis­miss the sweep­ing gen­er­al­iza­tions often made by those look­ing to “stir the pot” to draw atten­tion to them­selves or who are pon­tif­i­cat­ing based on an incom­plete set of information.

All indus­tries have a range of prac­ti­tion­ers with var­ied lev­els of expe­ri­ence. Ease of online pub­lish­ing allows any­one with a com­puter to pro­mote them­selves, with or with­out “real” skills.

That ’s true for ven­dors and con­sul­tants as well as for client side mar­keters that hire them. All con­sult­ing engage­ments do not go as planned between all clients and all agen­cies. Not all staff at agen­cies are as capa­ble as the senior exec­u­tives that “sell” the client. Not all client side mar­keters are com­pe­tent to make the best busi­ness deci­sions on behalf of the com­pa­nies they work for.

Mar­ket­ing on the web doesn’t suc­ceed based on absolutes.

Recently I’ve seen crit­i­cism lev­eled at SEO with dis­re­gard for details that paints an entire indus­try based on the actions of a mis-representative sam­ple. The sweep­ing gen­er­al­iza­tions based on incom­plete knowl­edge made right along with sound web site advice made the author seem cred­i­ble. But they’re not – at least in the area of SEO. Such crit­i­cism has been deftly and humor­ously dealt with and smart mar­keters at com­pa­nies can eas­ily see the dif­fer­ence between ranty pro­pa­ganda and reality.

To dis­miss SEO with the kinds of neg­a­tive char­ac­ter­i­za­tions as have been pub­lished from time to time over the past few years and espe­cially recently is not only an insult to com­pe­tent Search Mar­ket­ing con­sul­tants, but to the com­pa­nies that hire them. Plus, it’s sim­ply not true. Con­sider this:

TopRank ran a poll on the top dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing tac­tics our read­ers (532 of them par­tic­i­pated) would empha­size in 2009. SEO ranked #3. I don’t think those mar­keters are con­vinced that SEO is some­thing that “doesn’t work”.

Another use­ful sta­tis­tic is that by 2013 total US search mar­ket­ing will reach nearly $23.4 bil­lion, and mar­keters will be spend­ing more on SEO than on con­tex­tual adver­tis­ing. (eMar­keter). Fol­low the money and you’ll see an indus­try that is cred­i­ble and where cor­po­rate mar­keters are invest­ing. How is it that “SEO doesn’t work” and that “any­one could do it” if they just designed good web­sites, when bil­lions are being spent on Search Marketing?

Put money aside for a moment. Let’s look at results. In the SEMPO State of Search Mar­ket­ing Sur­vey, SEO was ranked the #2 inter­net mar­ket­ing tac­tic for gen­er­at­ing return on invest­ment (ROI). Those num­bers speak loud and clear. It’s because of SEO that thou­sands of busi­nesses have increased rev­enue by hun­dreds of mil­lions of $ at a frac­tion of the cost of other forms of advertising.

ROI isn’t enough for some peo­ple, so let’s look at the results of Forbes 2009 Ad Effec­tive­ness Sur­vey that show SEO as the Most Effec­tive Online Mar­ket­ing Tac­tic for Gen­er­at­ing Con­ver­sions. Still think SEO doesn’t work?

While bil­lions more dol­lars go into seach, much of it towards Search Engine Opti­miza­tion, and com­pa­nies con­tinue to drive the best ROI and con­ver­sion rates from SEO over many other dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing tac­tics, the dis­senters really don’t make much sense, do they?

Com­pa­nies can plan and imple­ment SEO on their own just like all of the major search engines have in-house SEOs. Many com­pa­nies out­source all or part of their SEO work. Either for­mat works accord­ing to the sit­u­a­tion. In all cases, ongo­ing edu­ca­tion, test­ing and over­sight is nec­es­sary to remain competitive.

As long as things can be searched, they can be opti­mized for bet­ter per­for­mance in search. Until search engines are per­fect at find­ing, crawl­ing, index­ing and sort­ing search­able con­tent, there will be a need for Search Engine Opti­miza­tion exper­tise. Mak­ing a great web site for peo­ple is not the same thing as mak­ing a great web site for peo­ple that can eas­ily be found in search engines.

No indus­try is per­fect, but clearly SEO is an indus­try that is a pow­er­ful mar­ket­ing chan­nel and will con­tinue to grow and evolve. Search mar­keters and the com­pa­nies that employ them (in-house or con­sul­tants) should be proud of the progress they’ve made at mak­ing infor­ma­tion more eas­ily dis­cov­er­able for con­sumers and the com­merce that results.

Related Posts:

• Explore The World of Web 2.0!
• The Top 50 SEO and SEM Blog­gers Worth Following
• Web direc­to­ries find you part­ners, traf­fic and money
• Web Direc­to­ries
• Does SEO Still Exist?

Tags: biased-towards, business, SEO, the-business