Search Engine Marketing and the Big Money Element

The realm of search engine marketing has changed considerably in the last ten years and even since 2004.  Expenditures on search engine marketing media have increased dramatically as part of the 34% per cent growth in online marketing budgets last year in the US. North American advertisers spent $9.4 billion on search engine marketing (SEM) in 2006, a 62 percent increase over 2005 according to a SEMPO study.

Search has proven itself the most effective advertising format and more money is being poured into pay per click advertising. In terms of expenditures, paid placement accounted for 86 percent of total spending, or $8 billion. Organic SEO accounted for $1.1 billion in spending, or 12 percent. However, smarter money is going into organic ranking development since organic accesses more searchers and has ongoing value.

In the organic search category, less effort is being exerted, but those who do channel their budgets into organic search engine optimization activities are going to thrive in future. That’s because they’ll have more money available to outbid PPC spenders who neglected to go after the free traffic. In short, they will dominate both the organic rankings and take the top PPC ad spots and therefore eliminate their competitors entirely. This is already happening I can assure you.

How do small companies with small budgets fare in this new realm of big advertising money? Increasingly, not well, however small firms can hire SEO specialists and take back some of that big money advantage.

Big Advertising Agencies

Unfortunately, as we’ve noticed, big ad agencies are increasingly interested in our SEO services. It’s not a surprise given the value we can generate for their clients. Our optimization skills along with good resources to generate a strong all round SEO promotional effort are very difficult for a small budget web site to beat. No matter what angle the search engine wishes to skew its algorithm, we can help our clients meet those changes and create multiple optimization strategies that keep them ranked well. Amateur SEOs, web designers, and Web site owners who have studied a little SEO strategy may come up with a single strategy to eek out a little traffic, but they don’t create the big successes that big companies are looking for.

Businesses are getting serious about SEO and SEM, yet they’re still having difficulty thinking long term and moving funds from SEM into organic search engine optimization. That works well for the search engine companies who rake in incredible profits every year as advertisers try to outbid each other.

This isn’t to say that big money can outright buy high organic rankings. Search engines have done a great job in ensuring that all sites have an opportunity to appear in the search results. Buying thousands of links bulk-style doesn’t translate into high rankings nor does over-optimization of a Web site. With abundant financial resources however, we are able to create the right type of optimization to suit that particular client. This takes time and study as algorithms are very complicated. It means taking time to find the right techniques for that particular web site and researching the best web site partners to build a relationship with. This is where a customized SEO service is so powerful.

Although small poorly funded web sites can sometimes find themselves ranked well, their position is always precarious as thousands of web sites are waiting to overtake them. Even if a search engine decides to freeze the rankings for a while to prevent manipulation, inevitably it must open the index to newcomers and those who meet the search engine’s need for quality. Poorly funded sites often don’t possess the right content nor present it to the search engine so that it is considered relevant. And when a site is changed or over overhauled, it often disappears from the rankings forever.

As a specialist SEO Company, we compete with other top SEO specialists and webmasters equipped with unique ranking resources.  We compete with them and most times, win. Obviously good funding is going to make a difference but the skill has to be there. Currently, agencies with lots of search engine marketing dollars are considering hiring someone and training them in house. That sounds like fiscally responsible thing to do, but what they inevitably discover is that a trainee’s ability doesn’t compare to our optimization expertise which is built on extensive experience and study.

If you are an agency executive or account manager, you aren’t doing yourself any favors by avoiding an SEO specialist. Given the incredible return on SEO, it makes sense to hire a seasoned specialist to manage your client’s search engine presence. And don’t assume an SEO specialist won’t outperform a PPC management company. We know searchers and what makes them click.