The search engine marketing industry is consistently evolving at a pace which makes it difficult to believe that search engine marketing solutions can keep on top of all the most recent developments. The one constant for search engine marketing firms, and also for the industry generally, is change–usually for the better, sometimes for the worse, but always significant. The industry is not for them. However, savvy search engine marketing firms attempt to appear ahead to anticipate trends. Here are my predictions of topics that search engine marketing services will face in the short term.
More Accountability Demanded from Search Engine Marketing Firms
Search engine marketing companies that use tactics designed to fool the engines into showing results which are not directly addressing the search query will struggle, as more companies start to look at the larger goals that direct them to research search engine marketing services in the first place. The”traffic-centric” mindset will evolve as companies start to demand accountability from search engine marketing companies in terms of bottom line increases. Ranking raises delivered by search engine marketing services will likely be questioned if they don’t result in significant traffic increases, and traffic increases will likely be questioned if there’s absolutely no increase in business generated in the website. This is a good thing for quality search engine marketing firms since the”snake-oil” professionals who have given the industry such a bad name will never be given serious consideration by any firm that does its homework at the vendor selection process. Vovia
Growing PPC Costs and Growing PPC Frustration
As larger companies with huge budgets continue to leap into the pay-per-click (PPC) stadium, prices will continue to rise. (Average PPC costs have risen by 37% from Q1 2005 to Q1 2006. (1)) These well-funded businesses use PPC as a branding tool as much as a sales tool, which will squeeze out most of their present smaller advertisers. In fact, the 10 PPC advertising companies, based upon the number of PPC impressions, include such titles as Yahoo, NextTag, Vonage, Time Warner, Orbitz, Target, and eBay. (2) More large companies will continue to join the fray, many of them throwing ROI from the window and bid high prices for desirable keyphrases for the interest of branding. This means that search engine marketing companies will discover small- to midsize companies turning to SEO when they can afford PPC, to attain results.
Increased Interest in Organic SEO
While PPC prices rise, there is also a trend that no doubt disturbs the engines that provide PPC programs. Sixty-six percent of customers”distrust” paid search advertisements. (3) Up to 85% of searchers say that they”tend to discount the paid listings”(4), while 87 percent of clicks happen” on the organic (not sponsored) search results” (5) Three times as many marketers who outsource the management of their natural SEO to search engine marketing companies and who also participate in pay-per-click advertising recognize a greater ROI from their search engine marketing solutions than from PPC. (6) These facts, coupled with the fact that Google has just announced that it will start to choose the relevance of webpages into consideration when choosing what sequence the ads will look (which will signify that successful PPC campaigns will need at least some standard organic SEO), point to one obvious outcome –an increase in the amount of companies that investigate organic SEO applications, whether internally generated or supplied by external search engine marketing companies. Calgary SEM | Edmonton SEM | Search Engine Marketing by Vovia
Continued Reluctance from Agencies to Pursue Search Marketing
To most, it seems like a perfect match –traditional advertising agencies joining forces with (or purchasing outright) PPC suppliers and organic search engine marketing services. On the other hand, the average agency is scared to death of search engine marketing solutions in any form (although a few forward-looking agencies have jumped on the internet search engine marketing bandwagon). The reasons are simple: liability and metrics.
Marketing agencies have for decades made cash based upon a proportion of what a company spends on advertising. This model was the standard for decades. However, it raises some problems. What’s the motivation to get an agency to recommend spending non-performing initiatives? Moreover, what causes an agency need to report on each of its campaigns’ efficacy? (If an agency’s clients dug deeply into some such metrics, they would likely reduce their advertising spend based on the performance of individual campaigns) Many PPC service providers have adopted this model, even though the goal of a PPC campaign must be to track the metrics of a campaign to reduce the invest (eliminating underperforming keyphrases, for example).
Great search engine marketing providers offer metrics which scare traditional advertising services. If these bureaus were to present such metrics to their clients, those very same clients might start to demand similar metrics for different campaigns (television, radio, magazine advertisements, etc.). Until the”percent of spend” model is altered, big agencies will continue to reject search engine marketing solutions and are not going to suggest them to their clientele.
Continued Focus on Google for Organic SEO
In general, where Google goes, other engines will follow. Search engine marketing solutions will continue to optimize for Google, which accounts for half of the hunts in the United States. (7) However, rather than trying to deceive Google by minding the latest, ever-changing algorithm, search engine marketing companies will instead need to use the”piggyback” strategy. This approach entails learning by the studies that Google conducts of its customers (learning by detecting the commonalities of the forms of websites that consistently rank highly) and implementing those very same attributes to client websites. Search engine marketing firms not make sites for Google but for consumers. As other engines attempt to close the relevancy gap search engine marketing firms will be rewarded because the tactics they have used for achievement become the industry standard. marketing services calgary
Conclusion
The usage of search engine marketing services is still a new,”unproven” channel to many businesses. It is changing the way that lots of standard advertising agencies must do business. With PPC costs on the rise and the effectiveness of this PPC channel coming into question, more firms will investigate the hiring of search engine marketing companies using approaches for their Internet marketing needs. Bright businesses that outsource organic or PPC advertisements will no longer say”what have you done for me lately”–they’ll say”prove what you’ve done lately.” Search engine marketing solutions that are on top of the curve will be happy to do so.
