Posts filed under 'News and Views'
There is a lot of debate going on within the industry as regards whether paid links are good or bad following Google’s recent decision to ‘clamp down’ on sites using paid linkage for SEO purposes. Opinions vary greatly in the industry, from Andrew Girdwood (of Bigmouthmedia fame) in the ‘Paid Links are bad‘ corner, and Michael Gray in the ‘Paid Links are good‘ corner who it might be said is not in favour of the nofollow tag.
Impartiality over and I’ll now get of the fence. I have discussed this at length with one of my SEO pals in particular (Will Graham). I personally have to say I agree with Michael’s viewpoint (to a certain degree). In my opinion, Paid linkage merely affects those with sufficient budget to exploit such an opportunity, and I would suggest isn’t likely to affect smaller operations.
Whilst I can see the theory behind this, in practise it doesn’t work in my opinion. If I want to advertise on the Superbowl/FA Cup Final - I have to pay the applicable going rate - same applies for pitch sponsorship/press advertising etc). At the end of the day money talks - always has, and probably always will, and whilst that isnt a good counter argument, it is unfortunately true.
Now, I hear the argument for paid search being countered to the above, however Google is clamping down on such activity because of the attempted exploitation of its algorithm. Why does it have to do this - because people are constantly looking for new ways to get to number one, and in fear of alienating myself in the community, I would suggest it is many smaller SEO’s that are responsible for much of the clamping down. Let me explain that comment further.
- Have you ever seen a multinational organisation exploit open blogs/websites via scripting for extra linkage - in all likelihood - no
- Have you seen a lot of big organisations relying heavily on link farms etc - in all likelihood no.
- Have you seen many big organisations write an automated script merely replace keywords on an ongoing basis to target niche localised terms - in all likelihood no
- How many large organisations have you seen employing large scale cloaking techniques - ok there are some - but not many in my opinion
Whilst many of these have been clamped down on - surely there is still a lot of work here to do, and making a big song and dance about paid linkage merely moves the problem on to another area that search marketeers will try to exploit.
At the end of the day (and this is my esteemed friend Will’s main point which we both agree on) - it comes down to Intent. Surely relevant paid linkage is not bad - it is merely exploiting the fact that search engines like Google, have created a commodity (ie something of value). This isn’t the fault of the advertisers, or the SEO’s and thus what is the point of penalising them for it?
At the end of the day, what is the difference between a paid linkage and a paid directory link - nothing at the end of the day, however it should be suggested they are both treated differently. It is a SEO’s job to build links - surely in aroundabout way thats paid linkage (albeit a stretch of the imagination) - however the point is - its a very grey area)
Using a recent example (and this is based on heresay - rather than fact), a major supermarket chain was rumoured to have bought their way to number 2 for the term ‘car insurance’ via a hardcore link building campaign. This is rumoured to have cost a fair amount of money and was successful in its objectives (albeit short term). However upon picking on the pattern, the result appears to have been ‘dropped’ in the index, and thus the effectiveness of those links dramatically reduced.Now ask yourself. Was this result relevant - yes it was. Was it on topic - Yes. Did it deserve to be there - IMO yes - a lot of work went in to generating that linkage - albeit reliant on paid linkage and personally I would rather such sites were found, than irrelevant sites that place merely based on automated scripting and link development
Wouldn’t providing more interaction with the search marketing community, and accepting that people are always going to try and get to number one and thus use people like SEO’s, be a better way for Google to react to such activity. By accepting it goes on and focussing on relevancy, surely Google can only enhance the relevancy of its results.
I personally would like to see some middle ground in the argument, as surely there is some place for paid linkage in the optimisation mix (PS Google check the site - I’m clean - no paid linkage here or client sites - just my own humble personal opinion)
August 24th, 2007
Whilst we all know the above not to be the case, it still amazes me how many times such comments still come out, however it is that coupled with a lack of ‘value’ that has really prompted this post.
I have lost count of the amount of times upon first meeting a client, I have a comment along the lines of ‘I only paid a fraction of that with my previous agency’ (and having ended up working on these sites/campaigns - it becomes all to apparent why they paid a fraction). However, it was a recent post on the UK Business Forums that really has got me thinking more about this.
In it one of the posters stated the following:
SEO is a corrupt industry - and I feel sorry for the honest SEO’s who are trying their best (RayB - Alocalprinter.com on the UKBusinessForums).
This statement, whilst grossly unfair, does however display the perception search engine optimisation in particular has, and whilst this statement is to a certain extent the personal opinion (although very misguided), it does serve as a benchmark of the mindset we as an industry need to change, particularly here in the UK.
If I went to an advertising agency, and told them I wanted 1000 signups in a month at a CPA of £50, I would be charged a GDP of a small country, however because the web is the web, that same model doesnt appear to translate to online marketing, with comments such as ‘ I also think the SEO industry is the new “Gold Rush” - lots of Cowboys and wild prices.’ (apologies our friend RayB yet again) commonplace.
So where does the issue lie?
Pricing
One has to therefore ask ourselves why is this? This particular scenario was in regard to a price quoted for an SEO project (I have my guesses which one - as initial poster mentions top 10 for SEO), where a price of 65K was mentioned. OK that sort of price whether a fair reflection of work or not (and in my opinion NOT), does not do any good for the reputation of the industry as a whole, as a shady bunch, rather than the Search Marketing professionals we are, and only serves to re-inforce the ‘SEO is a black art/SEO is overpriced brigade’. I would add however I would suggest such pricing was stated in order to disuade the client, rather than a true reflection of project value.
However pricing as a whole is still an issue. It varies widely across the industry, from niche regional boutique agency ad-ons to major search marketing only organisations such as Bigmouth and Latitude. However it is against the lowest common denominator that many of these prices are judged rather than against the larger organisations, which I would suggest isa more common practise across other related marketing sectors. Yes your web design/development agency can do SEO and Paid Search - but is it there bread and butter - Can they advise on long-term strategy - Integration of Online PR - Do they use up-to-date SEO techniques rather than Meta/On page optimisation only - Do they know what Panama is - the list goes on. I would suggest many of these ad-on type agencies don’t.
Selling Techniques
OK, I admit this is a bit generalised, however there are a number of Search Marketing agencies out there that do the Baffle, that is they blind the client with science, many of which are either factually incorrect or are hardly ever or never actually ever implemented on a SEO campaign.
This creates a feeling of ‘mystery’ about the industry to a certain extent, and to a certain degree a phobia. That coupled with the scaremonger Internet stories out there only serve to disuade potential advertisers of the power of the internet as a marketing tool.
The Internet is and will continue to be a powerful marketing tool, not just in terms of Search Engine Marketing but also in terms of other areas of Online Marketing such as Behavioural targeting and the like. However I would suggest until this stigma is broken their will continue to be a degree of reluctance by some advertisers to leverage the potential of the Internet.
Perception
Yes, Joe Blogs can optimise his site for ‘ant collection expert Oxford’. However and this is a BIG however, SEO is more than just optimising for a particular term, it is the aim of optimising for terms that will drive traffic, from enhanced visibility (not just in terms of search engines themselves) and encompasses far more than just visibility on one very localised term.
These days search engine optimisation comprises far more than just it used to. SEO has and probably always will do, had a foundation of creating new entry points into websites (ie linkage), and this means leveraging opportunities that are not just about mere PR passing, but also about traffic/lead generation. However in common day SEO, other facets of Search marketing are part of the SEO mix, such as Online PR, Social media Optimisation and Linkbaiting.
Paid Search is another part of the Search Marketing mix that suffers from a mixed public perception. According to a recent presentation I had from a Marketing Consultant, Paid search is perceived as expensive. I would in certain areas agree with this perception, particularly within the sub-prime finance sector, however there are still a lot of areas where a very good ROI can be achieved. For example I recently worked on a stairlift project where the ROI from the Online Marketing activity (in particular the PPC Management) was over four times lower than the offline activity, both in terms of the number of conversions and the actual cost per figures being reported.
Lack of regulation
This is one area where things are changing, particularly with the introduction of the Search Marketing Charter from the IAB. Such activity can only serve to enhance the perception of Search and Online Marketing as a whole.
Search Engine Marketing has come along way in short period of time, and no doubt will continue to evolve. However there is still some education required in order to show people just how Search Marketing and Online marketing can benefit an organisations marketing strategy
August 22nd, 2007
Great news, it appears we have a search engine optimisation meeting coming right up here to the Northwest, in fact the meeting to discuss all things SEO is in Manchester.
Posted on the Searchengineserious website, the Manchester SEO meet is arranged on September 14/15th 2007. Like the original PubCon all attendees are responsible for paying there own way with drinks, meals etc, no sponsors, no presentations etc, etc
To read more about the Manchester SEO meet, please visit the Searchengineserious website to register your interest.
August 6th, 2007
According to a recent review of business to consumer sales in the content, the UK is among the dominant forces for Online Marketing in Europe. The European B2C E-Commerce study was compiled by aggregating eMarketer figures with those from international marketing and communications researchers.
Figures published by the European B2C E-Commerce study showed that the UK, France and Germany accounted for 72% of all sales made via the Internet in Europe, however Eastern Europe was expected to figure more prominantly as uptake of online takes hold across the continent.
Jeffrey Grau, a senior eMarketer analyst, was quoted as saying: “By 2011, the combined market share of the three major B2C e-commerce markets … will drop slightly as smaller, second-tier markets provide a new wave of growth.
Further out on the horizon, a third wave of growth will centre on eastern European countries as they begin embracing e-commerce.”
July 31st, 2007
I read two thought provoking articles, one by Gord Hotchkiss on a Mediapost article, and the other an article called 2020 Foresight taken from ‘The Drum’. Whilst both articles were inherintely different, both had the issue of search evolvement at their heart.
Both though had vastly differing perspectives. In particular the 2020 Foresight article highlighted in my opinion many of the issues which still surround Search Marketing. The article, taken from the recent Manchester Media Forum, includes regional/national experts including Nigel Dean of O2, Chris O’Donnell of Kinetic, Mick Style of Mediaedge and Andy Jeal of Mediavest.
It was Andy Jeal’s views in particular that I found most suprising. In particular when tackling the issue of convergence, Jeal is quoted as saying: “I think the growth of search engines will slow - particularly when people realise that in many ways these search engines simply act as telephones”. Specifically he believes TV advertising still had a role in encouraging people to search for particular brands in the first instance. He went on to say “We have a lot of research that shows that DRTV campaigns are just as effective now as they ever were, despite the fact that fewer people are picking up the phone immediately after the ads are shown. What they tend to do is wait until their programme has finished, and then they’ll Google the brand to get in touch” and “We know this s happening as DRTV commercials are shown in bursts of activity and these Google searches co-incide with the ads being shown”.
Whilst I think Andy Jeal talks a lot of sense, I do have to disagree with some of his thoughts above, in particular his views on the growth or non-growth of search engines in the future. With convergence technologies such as IPTV gathering pace, surely the vehicle for delivery on such campaigns (ie TV adverts) is likely to reduce in the future and more innovative solutions are going to become more mainstream. He has also mentioned search engines being the vehicle by which many of these consumers are finding these brands, instead of picking up the phone, which leads me to ask. If they arent using the phone, and the arent using search engines (and consumers generally find it hard to remember URL’s), just what vehicle is going to be used to capture these potential consumers, and surely this is going to fuel further growth in search engine use?
Whilst I personally don’t believe that the search engine landscape will stay as it is now, search as a channel can only but continue increasing, however search as it is now, i would suggest would have evolved considerably by 2020, driven by alternative ad delivery (perhaps such as Video), and vertical specific search engines. At the end of the day, consumers need guidance, and the comparison with a telephone, seems somewhat misguided, perhaps more like a telephone book would be more apt?
However I will counter the above comments with some points that Gord Hotchkiss mentioned during his article on ‘Search Engines Innovate, Why Not SEMs?’. During the article, Gord highlighted the fact that Search Engines had focussed heavily on improving both the level and volume of their services and solutions over the last couple of years, however Online Marketing in general is struggling to keep pace
“Whether its personalization, universal results, Web 2.0 functionality or mobile, our search experience is about to change drastically. Search will become more relevant, more functional, more ubiquitous and more integrated. It will come with us (via our mobile devices) more often and in more useful ways. It will expand our entertainment options. It will change forever our local shopping trips. And it will all happen quickly.”
“The question is, what does this do for search marketing? In a recent conversation, I was asked where the major innovation in the search marketing space was coming from. This was prefaced by the remark that when a well-known industry analyst was asked the same question, they (I’ll keep the gender neutral, as there really aren’t that many industry analysts out there) said there was almost no innovation coming from search marketers. They were “living off the fat.” My first inclination was to jump to the defense of the industry, but this proved harder than I thought.
I realized I haven’t seen a lot of innovation lately. Certainly, the engines themselves are innovating. And I’m seeing innovation in adjacent areas (Web analytics, competitive intelligence). But I’m not seeing a lot happen in the search-marketing space. After a raft of proprietary bid management tools hit a few years ago, there’s been little happening to move the industry forward. In fact, I’ve noticed a lot of SEM heads buried in the sand. We are not encouraging change; we are actively fighting it.”
I can’t help but agree with him. Whilst I would add, there are a number of search evalgelists out there who sit at the forefront of the industry, there are all too many who dont, who still reside in a time where metatags ruled the world.
I will finish with some final words from Gords article, which I think some up the state of Online and Offline Advertising perfectly
“The change that’s happening in the search space is reflective of the change that is happening throughout marketing and advertising. It’s the continuing evolution of a much more efficient marketplace, where connections between customers and vendors are made tremendously more effective through access to information on both sides.
The traditional uncertainty of advertising is being leeched out of the system, due, in large part, to the tremendous effectiveness of search. And as search becomes more relevant and useful, it will make those connections more reliable, less intrusive and more successful for both parties. The opportunity is there for search marketers to help advertisers successfully negotiate this more efficient marketplace. It remains to be seen if we’re up for the challenge.”
To read the full article from Gord on the Search Insider Blog, please click here
July 27th, 2007
Hot on the heels of my previous post “Google Takes the Robots Meta Tag Further“ comes news that Google has now added the ability to manipulate robots without a Robots Meta Tag or a robots.txt file. How? and what use can this possibly serve?
How? Is through the headers of a web page, and why? is because you may want to prevent Google from indexing documents such as PDF, XLS and DOC files served directly from your website.
To use the new X-Robots-Tag directive all you need to do is create a HTTP header in your script that serves the document. In PHP this would be like so:
<?php header(’X-Robots-Tag: unavailable_after: 25-Dec-2007 13:00:00 GMT’) ?>
The X-Robots-Tag also appears to support all the same commands as the standard robots meta tag (noIndex,noFollow,etc).
July 19th, 2007
The total time spent on a website by a visitor is the best indicator of the success of online marketing attempts, it has been claimed in the much talked about plans by Neilson/Netratings this week. This is a significant shift away from the current preferred method of measurement, namely site visitors.
The change in focus comes in response to innovative website designs which incorporate dynamically updated content on the fly (ie Ajax) , rather than navigating through a site, as was the norm in Web1.0.
Director of product marketing for the NetView service Scott Ross was quoted as saying that the new index “ensures fair measurement of websites using rich internet applications and streaming media” as well as highlighting other benefits “also of web environments that have never been well-served by the page view, such as online gaming”.
The rise in use of technologies such as Ajax, has certainly created an issue for Neilsen/Netratings iin terms of effective measurement of site use. As Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim has already highlighted, a number of next generation browsers allow tabbed navigation and as such the validity of such figures could be severely offset by users who keep the page open for extended periods of time, for example I personally have a tab with a Google window open 95% of the time.
However with a lack of suitable alternatives for measurement within many of todays analytics solutions, I can understand to a certain degree the decision, however short sighted in my opinion it may be. Maybe this is more of an issue for the Analytics sector as a whole rather than just Neilsen individually.
July 13th, 2007
I have been suprised at many clients ‘reluctance’ to really engage their online marketing activity, focussing instead on website builds, e-mail marketing and traditional above and below the line advertising. I have come across many clients and potential clients who have spent vast sums of money on developing their websites, with little or no thought as to the function of the website, how it is going to convert traffic and how to generate traffic to the website.
To make this point even more clear - how many high street shops just rely solely on passing trade for business. Exactly, many will employ a number of other channels in which to drive both brand awareness and custom through the door, whether it be maildrops or press.
However this train of thought is often not carried through to online. There are many organisations, who merely develop their website and never undertake any activity to drive traffic to it, whether it be Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Paid Search (PPC), Online PR or merely just putting their web address on items such as their business cards or vans.
From an agency perspective, particularly from those entering the online marketing landscape from a web design or advertising perspective - there is a reluctance to really sell it as it is often seen as an ‘add-on’. However for a client really buying into online marketing, the revenue derived from such online marketing activity, can often exceed that of the website build itself - particularly in the long run.
In short, you wouldn’t setup a shop without advertising of some sort, so why spend hundreds/thousands on building your website, and then leave it and hope for the best?
June 25th, 2007
I have been interviewing a number of potential SEO executive candidates recently however I have to say I have been suprised by how difficult it is to get good Search Engine Marketeers in the current climate.
One of the candidates I spoke to, from a largish Manchester agency, spoke of his optimisation of a fantasy football website, with a circa £2K (A month!!!) link building budget… for a fantasy football site? Sure most SEO’s out there would be rubbing their hands gleefully at such a client. However my general gist during the interview was a feeling that whilst there was no doubting the research skills of the candidate, I didnt get the feeling he could think creatively, and out the box, in order to produce a rounded campaign for a client, not one sided in its origins, and ultimately likely to succeed long term.
This seems to have been a common theme throughout the interviews, clients ranging from technical wiz’s with no marketing acumen, to simple marketeers with no technical acumen.
Maybe thats what makes SEO so good, or maybe thats whats holding SEM in the UK back.
May 11th, 2007
I am constantly impressed by the state of the Search Engine Marketing industry in the UK, in particular the amount of research and ‘noise’ provided by the industry itself. In particular I was impressed with a recent report by Dylan Thwaites (and probably Jon Myers had a lot to do with it - with reference to the whitepaper itself referencing the author Jon Myers). That aside, a very insightful and interesting read,
The whitepaper itself focussed on recent research by the IAB/PWC which stated that 2.5% of all advertising spend in the US is spent on Search, compared against 11.4% in the UK. Dylan went onto state that it was his opinion that the UK online marketing industry is ‘the most advanced in the world’.
“The US market has roughly four times the volume of searches as the UK market and in bid economics should command higher prices for highly competitive phrases. It does not and this indicates a less competitive and less developed market state”.
Not mincing his word you may agree !!!!
The report concluded:
1. The search engines pay commission in the UK and this has had a firestarter effect on search penetration
2. The US market has a much higher proportion of in house search marketers, who to be less innovative and do not operate search as effectively as search agencies, slowing the flow of funds from other media
3. Many US search agencies reacted slowly to the paid search opportunity due to organic inertia
4. The UK market is more mature and more competitive than the US market and hence more intensely innovative
5. Cost per click prices are marginally higher in the UK, but there is no evidence to show that the engines are abusing their market dominance
Whilst I don’t necessarily agree with all the point raised in the report, points 1-3 within the above conclusions would seem to be on the ball from recent research we have conducted, however point 4 is slightly more contentious. In my opinion there are only a handful of agencies in the UK that can handle the large scale projects for the larger organisations, BigMouthMedia, Latitude, a couple of the WPP organisations to name a few. Whilst I don’t argue with his analysis of the recent MSN trials in France vs UK, whether this is comparable to the US market is debatable IMO
However on the whole, the report is well worth a read, and can be accessed by clicking here
May 4th, 2007
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