Today, I listened in on an excellent Search Marketing Now webcast presented by Chris Sherman, executive editor of SearchEngineLand. The hour-long webcast covered how you should find the right search marketing partner, and Chris raises some excellent points.

Chris begins by introducing the different aspects of search marketing:

• Organic Search Engine Optimization: search results that are not paid for
• Paid Inclusion: guarantees entry into the search engine results pages
• Paid Placement: buying sponsored listings
• Contextual Advertising: advertising on a partner of the search engine, like a newspaper or a partner
• Specialized search marketing, such as on a mobile phone, which “is going to explode in the coming five years.”

When choosing your search marketing partner, you need to define your strategy and look at your goals. What are you trying to accomplish? The following methods are recommended:

• If you have short-term goals, you might want paid placement.
• If you want control over what pages are being indexed, go for paid inclusion.
• If you want long-term continually growing traffic, you’re going to want organic SEO.
• The basic long-term strategy is a combination of these methods, if you can afford it.

In paid placement, there’s a myth that “all you need is a credit card and five minutes of your time,” that getting results is “easy” — just pick your keywords and place your bids. Are those keywords, however, going to define your successes? The reality is that there are a number of factors to consider:

1. Copywriting. You need an efficient “call to action” campaign and the right skills to create those ads.
2. Competition. You’re not the only one out there; “bid gapping”
3. Being #1. This is often driven by ego, that you have to be in the #1 position. The #1 position might not be the most effective. The ROI of the second or third position might even be better than being in the #1 position. (It is important to note that the ROI is critical to measure what you’re getting but is not always straightforward.)
4. Time of Placement. Is the time of day that you display an ad important? Perhaps it is better being displayed when you’re at work, or instead, at home? Marketers in television, radio, and other types of media have given this a lot of thought. This has been increasingly more important in search.
5. Matching Strategy. What kind of matching strategy is most effective for your search terms? The “broad match is going to cast a white net but may not be as fine tuned.”
6. Contextual program? Will your ads be effective if served through a contextual program? While this expands the coverage, research suggest that when people are viewing the ad, they’re not in the same acquisition mode. When people search, they want to satisfy a need or goal. Contextual search is not active search; it’s more passive. Still, this can be effective — it depends what you’re aiming for.
7. Geo-targeted ads. Should you be distributing your ads on a global basis or within miles of where you’re aiming to get your traffic? On the other side, do you want to exclude any specific area or region?
8. Demographics. You can target users based on age, sex, and other factors, which can be useful. The programs specializing in demographics are relatively new and require more sophistication and testing to be more effective.
9. Coping with “Quality Guidelines”. There are new factors and new evaluation techniques to see when and where ads are placed. They are not well-explained by search engines and have stirred controversy, because marketers might consider these effective while search engines disagree.

In organic search engine optimization, the process of tweaking your website, writing good content, being involved in link-building programs, and various other activities that tell engines that you should be ranked well in search results, there’s a myth that SEO is simply the need to tweak a few tags, repeat a few keywords, and get a lot of links. The reality is that you need to take many other factors into account: linguistics, site design, usability, linking patterns, and web-server issues. When looking for a search marketing partner, you should find someone who is well-versed in these issues that are constantly being updated. Poor SEO can trigger penalities, whether that means reduced rankings or being kicked out of the results altogether.

Paid Inclusion should not be dismissed, even though it’s not heavily used. Yahoo! search marketing seems to do this most frequently. It allows you as the owner of a website to submit specific URLs that are guaranteed to be crawled and indexed. This does not guarantee rankings, only guaranteed results in the SERPs. Sometimes this helps when your web server or site design is not easily crawled.

Why is paid inclusion important?

• JupiterResearch estimates that 87% of all commercial clicks come from organic listings. It is very important to be in there.
• The concern about paid inclusion is that you pay both an annual fee and a pay-per-click fee. Therefore, it is a higher expense to use such a program versus indexing sites on their own.
• Still, this is an ideal solution for a site that, for example, has seasonal inventory and needs to ensure that the most up-to-date content is in the results.

Does SEO work? Is there empirical evidence?

The answer is yes. JupiterResearch polled companies and asked them the sophisitication with their SEO knowledge and the size of their companies. Most of the companies, regardless of size, were very satisfied with the SEO process that they used. Those that did not use SEO services also seemed satisifed, which seems surprising. But the results show that SEO works.

JupiterResearch also did another study that showed that people having trouble managing their keywords are from larger companies. This does not mean that small sites should discount SEO. Even with these small sites, there’s competition and SEO should be considered.

If you’re looking to outsource SEM activities, break it down into the various tasks you want your firm to provide. With organic SEO, this can include keyword and HTML optimization, resolving dynamic server issues (for example, a CMS that has parameter strings that makes it difficult for crawlers to access pages), landing pages, link building campaigns, and paid inclusion programs.

You might want them to be involved in the management of paid search campaigns, which includes:

• Keyword research: the lesser-used “long tail” keywords are usually very effective in attracting the attetnion of searchers
• Bidding management
• Position monitoring (your position on search results can vary “even by seconds”).
• Post-click analytics: what happens when people click on a link? Do they do what you want them to do? Did they sign up for that event or buy the product?
• ROI Analysis: is our search marketing working? Is it working better than our offline marketing campaign? If there’s a good ROI from the search marketing campaign, the budget of search marketing within your company can go up.
• Competitive Analysis: What are the people you’re competing with doing?

What do you need?
An important factor before you look for a search marketing partner is to determine your own needs first. You’ll need to know what you want out of this relationship: do you want someone who will only optimize your site or someone who will manage keyword bidding? Maybe you want them to handle everything. Services can be set exclusively for a certain aspect of marketing, but it depends on what you need.

You might want to consider the cultural issues of search marketing. Do you want your “SEO firm” to be part of your team or independent? Some companies keep SEO in-house for security issues, compliance issues, legal issues, etc. However, others, for the same reasons, need to outsource their SEO.

How often do you need it? Do you want one-time or ongoing service? Most search marketing firms want to do ongoing service contracts, but if you think you have a relatively straightforward site that wants a tuneup, then maybe you’d want one-time SEO work done.

Once you determine your goals, how do you evaluate that the potential firm is going to be the right fit?

Before you get in contact, take a look at the firm’s website. See if they are capable and competent. A good search marketing website needs:

• Clear description of services offered: Get rid of the “tech gobbleygook,” because it obscures what is going on to you, the customer. All good search marketers who know what they are doing can explain it. You want to see a website that clearly explains what they are going to do.
• A client list (case studies are even better): Some people want to look at results. Some firms offer finances. A really good way of looking at this is in terms of returns from your campaign investment.
• Detailed “About Us” Section: Who are the people who are going to do the work for you? In this industry, people are very important. This business is people-oriented. What background, experience, and education do these individuals have? This is important particularly in management (the individuals accountable).
• Resources: The best search marketing firms offer a lot of tools and other information sources. They are not afraid to give away this valuable information. They recognize that if they give away a certain amount of information to show that the work isn’t that easy themselves, they will realize that they have to turn it over to a professional. It’s a competitive advantage for them.
• Optional but confidence booster: Get a description of the practices used and a statement of ethics. Some SEO techniques can be frowned upon. They may be effective, but only for the short-term. You generally want a firm that is ethical.

Selecting an SEO Firm

• Write your own Request for Proposal (RFP): State clearly — “Here are my needs. How are you going to respond to my needs?” Get the firm to speak to you in terms that you understand. Doing this avoids the irrelevant pitches that may not apply to your requirements.
• Avoid anyone who can guarantee “top ten” results. It is virtually impossible to make an organic guarantee. No SEO firm has any special relationship with the search engine to get in the results. (But if the claim is on the paid side, there’s no challenge in getting the results — it’s a given. That guarantee is meaningless.)
• Be prepared to pay for what you get. Effective SEO is not cheap. It is extremely competitive.

Recommended Resources

• Search Engine Visibility by Shari Thurow
• Search Engine Marketing – The Essential Best Practice Guide by Mike Grehan
• Winning Results with Google AdWords by Andrew Goodman (sponsored side)
• SEMPO – www.sempo.org
• SEO Pros – www.seopros.org
• SEO Consultants – www.seoconsultants.com
• Marketingsherpa.com has interesting reports, such as the Search Marketing 2007 Benchmark Guide, which focuses on what’s going on in the industry (hot topics, etc.) .
• Research reports from Forrester and JupiterResearch – who is involved in the search marketing community. If you visit these website, the reports are available to anybody for a fee.

Questions?

Q: What kinds of costs are associated with contracting a search marketing firm? and I don’t have a budget to hire. What are my options?

A: It varies. There’s no “per day amount, per hour amount” in this industry. It can cost anywhere from $20/hour up to tens of thousands of dollars. It also depends on the tasks involved. SEO is essnetially is a one-time process that should be revisited every six months or every year. Ongoing SEO work alone doesn’t have many costs. But when you jump into sponsored listings or a bidding campaign, there’s a relatively modest amount of money to get going. There’s also the need for analytics and understanding how effective the campaign is so that you can make adjustements accordingly along the way. Search marketing can be more effective, so you may be able to take money away from the other marketing budgets.

There are also firms that will work on a pay-per-performance basis. You pay based on results. But for it to be win-win, the results need to be defined clearly. In a nutshell, the cost issue is complex. There are no easy answers.

Q: When dealing with outsourcing versus in-house professionals, I’m doing SEO in-house now but am thinking of doing it outside. What factors do I need to consider?

A: There is no basic cut-and-dry answer for any one site. The benefits of in-house SEO is that everyone in the team is there and there are no competing SEO projects, like in an outsourced SEO firm. When you have it in-house, the burden of keeping it up to date and current falls on you. If you’re already doing other things and juggling multiple projects, you might not want that. If you go outsourced, you take this extra responsibility off your plate.

Q: How does it work with my IT staff?

A: IT departments are interesting. They have to have a fair amount of control within their organization. Most IT departments don’t realize that it’s not an internal IT function. “Search” is an external marketing thing, not an internal technical thing.

Q: Would you recommend one provider for both, or two for PPC/organic?

A: This is also hard to answer. Some larger firms develop both sides of expertise and can be full-service firms. However, there’s increased specialized firms. Some of the firms that focus exclusively on any one aspect might have a competitive edge over full-service firms. It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

Q: Is bid-gapping an issue more when moving to an opaque bidding platform?

A: There are always going to be people who want to gain and exploit an edge. You need to monitor and react accordingly. The gap is at its greatest when people are in competitive industries who are competing against brand-new entrants who may not realize what drives bid prices. The problem is diminishing, but even if it goes away, there will be something else.

Q: Avoiding a top 10 guarantee makes sense, but what should we look for in terms of service?

A: When you go to a website, you want your users to do something, perhaps buy a product or understand your brand. Your goal is to get conversions, and there needs to be a way to measure your conversions. You can analyze searcher behavior. It may take a little bit more work and most good search marketing firms are creative in taking information and fashioning it into a metric. These are less concrete but still meaningful metrics.

Q: How much improvement would measure a successful campaign?

A: It’s hard to say. It varies by industry. It may not be much at all in competitive industries. If you have a real-world marketing campaign, we have numbers (direct mail – 1 out of 100 responses, for example). In search, the numbers tend to be higher. When you look at the results, they might appear small, but they’re actually quite meaningful. It depends on the industry you’re in, what you’re accustomed to. If you have a confidently designed campaign, you are going to have pretty good success with it. This goes goes back to defining what you’re going to accomplish first and how to measure it.

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