Search Marketing for 2009 & SMX West
I was lucky enough to spend the past week at the SMX West search marketing conference hosted by Search Marketing Land and it was really interested to see how the economy has affected the search marketing industry. So what’s the low down? Search is widely viewed to be more important than it was before.
This is largely due to the fact that the SEM results are so easily measurable compared to traditional forms of media. Where one may have to wait for the next issue to hit the stands to see your big, pricey print ad, wait for that radio spot to get on air or the TV commercial to run – your paid search results are almost instantaneous. Within days of setting up a campaign on Google, marketers can begin to measure ROI. Campaigns are also easily targeted, spend can be adjusted depending on the hour of the day and your impression share can be either massive or restricted to your niche depending on your strategy. Beats the pants off that pretty little print ad!
So what have the search marketers seen in terms of budget cuts and reallocation? For the most par
t, paid search/sem/seo has stayed the same or recieved a larger chunk of that reallocated budget. Search has become an integral part of the way users shop, for retailers it’s inconceivable not to have an online strategy. With Google snatching up 60% of all internet searches it would be silly not to at least try to rank well in the engine, organically and sponsored.
The same old issues – organic search optimization (SEO) is a longer term project and incredibly important, many companies do not consider SEO a top priority. Jessica Bowman held a fantastic series of sessions on how to set up, implement & manage SEO in-house – focusing on how to work it into the project life cycle. SEO is great because it doesn’t cost nearly the amount paid search does. Ranking well organically for a search term is just as important as holding down that 1st position in sponsored – people do still click on other search results. The beauty of SEO is that you can achieve the same results as with paid search, it just takes longer. The buy- in for paid search seemed to be more easily attained as it can be directly linked to sales and measurable ROI.
One major trend is the switch from agency to in-house sems. Where the majority of the conference attendees at SMX LoMo in July ‘08 came from agencies, the vast majority of everyone at SMX West were in-house. I’m not sure if this has more to do with cost effectiveness of losing the agency or acknowledgment that your sem/seo is best done by someone who knows your product. Internal resources that can work within the company to ensure and execute a comprehensive online strategy are invaluable.
For a full recap of all the festivities visit SMX West 09 and don’t forget to sign up for SMX Advanced!
Some of My Highlights From SMX:
- Keynotes with Vint Cerf, John Battelle & Danny Sullivan
- Legal Session on Trademarks, gTLDs & Privacy
- Advanced Keyword Research panel
- Advanced Landing Pages
- In-House Day with Jessica Bowman
Budgets change, companies come and go but one thing is certain – Search is definitely here to stay and it’s going to be an exciting year.
Elise
