SEO Accounts for Only 11% of SEM Spending

[thejenn]

Authored by: Stoney deGeyter

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/degeyter/006742.html

A Snippet:

Optimization is a long-term process that requires patience for results to be achieved, and continuous maintenance to stay "on top". PPC simply requires more money to stay on top.

[visitor]

Hi Jenn

Historically and even to nowadays, SEM/SEO is high associated and identified with 'traffic' by the prospects. Value of SEM/SEO, by this association mentioned above, is often translated into the amount of traffic the project drives. For this matter, PPC is a very appealing option for many clients as 1. it drives 'traffic' and 2. as mentioned in the article, its results are immediate.

Organic SEM/SEO demands much more effort from both parties, and it may take some time before one can pin-point an evidence for organic SEM/SEO result(s). Just based on these very simple premises alone, it's not difficult to, at least, emphasize with the clients and/or prospects for favoring PPC over organic SEM/SEO.

I'm willing to bet that a significant chunk of those spending money on PPC but not SEO are doing so because they find few SEO firms that understand how to incorporate sales, marketing and usability into their client's sites. Many such companies simply don't want to change their sites in order to accommodate optimization which they fear inhibits their site's ability to sell. These site's are unwilling to re-design for usability issues and/or incorporate any textual changes for the benefit of the search engines. We've run across our share of these companies ourselves. Unless they are willing to make some changes, SEO will largely be ineffective.

Some of these companies spend a great deal of money on their websites, going through layer after layer of corporate bureaucracy just to get approvals. Part of this bureaucracy is often a marketing department that is unwilling to make any changes to the site they worked so hard at getting "just right".

My further comment(s) would just be an alternative version of quoted statement above. We all understand the issue...but yet, so many of us (SEO/SEM service providers) still focus so much on 'traffic' aspect. The reason is simple...because it's easier to sell the idea of 'traffic=success' to uneducated prospects.

I believe it is a part of our duties to educate our prospects (even if all they want is more traffic) about the importance of synergy in 3 core components of business: product/service selection (aka merchandizing), conversion and traffic.

IMHO, education is the key to success in a long term for the industry...not just educating the unaware prospects, but also...educating yourself about other 2 of the 3 core components of business mentioned above. Sooner the illusion of traffic goes away, the better it will be for both prospects/clients and SEM/SEO professionals.

Stoney deGeyter for writing a great article that every management should read.

Your Humble,
Visitor

[thejenn]

Visitor! Great to see you!

Hope you stick around.

I'm in the camp that believes that PPC is so much more prevalant because it's an advertising model that most agencies and traditional marketers can wrap their head around. The holistic marketing approach that is organic search engine optimization is confusing and tough to wrap your head around if you're used to just "buying" your placement.

I think we'll continue to see this change over time through things like client education, but we've got a long road to go...

[visitor]

Jenn, I'd agree with about the nature of PPC model - it's advertisement on 'direct marketing' steroid. It's biggest appeal, to me at least, is that PPC is extremely quantifiable (in its bare essence).

What rubs me in the wrong way, per se, is how often research (es) would focus on ad copy effectiveness vs. position. This primarily affects CTR (a form of conversion none the less) for the PPC campaign. Conversion for the product and/or service takes a place post-click-through at a specific landing page. Conversion factors at this point fall in POP (Point Of Purchase) realm.

No landing page can convert at 100%. Though keeping prospect(s) within the landing page would be desirable in most cases, there is an extremely effective conversion factor that's often underrated, path-through conversion factors.

One of the strongest and effective reinforcement for conversion is when a prospect 'browses' through the site after arriving at the landing page (no first round conversion there) and ends up at the initial landing page. Navigation/information structure/hierarchy and usability of the site play a mucho role here.

Scenario started with traffic, and then merchandizing keeps the prospect on the site/page. And, there is that whole conversion thing

Again...as you've already stated, it will take A LONG time before more corporations will be willing to invest time, money and effort in organic SEO/SEM, merchandizing and conversion factors.

Client education is a pickle...there is a no lie about it

Have a wonderful weekend!

Your humble,
visitor

[St0n3y]

Jenn, you're right, PPC is a much easier model for people to get their heads wrapped around. It's pretty simple and straight forward. But even traditional marketing; radio, tv ads, etc, are not so straight forward. Businesses advertising using these methods generally don't pay on a cost per view or cost per lead basis. But what they do get is creative control over what is said and done in those ads. With SEO compromises must be made to websites in order to be more search engine friendly. That's not to say any of those compromises should negatively effect the ability of the site to market itself, but I've run across many who don't want to add text to their site just because it's already "perfect".

I think when more SEO is just another part of the total (online) marketing campaign we'll see more businesses move that way.

Thanks visitor for the kind words about the article!