In an online world where just about everything can be tracked and measured, why do so many marketers have trouble putting ROI on any sort of online marketing, advertising or lead generation campaign?

There was a terrific post by Pat LaPointe on the measurement of Social Media where he adds his comments and insight to an interview with three experts from well-know companies who were asked about the best ways to measure the ROI of a social media campaign.

The bottom line ascertained by the interviews is that it’s difficult and nobody really has a grasp on it just yet. The real message that Pat points out is: Read the rest of this entry »

Question: Given the distortions caused by SEO, can the results of Google be trusted?

Ah, the age ol question, “Is SEO ultimately advertising?”

Given that it is in the best interest of Google, and the other major search engines, to serve the most authentic results in the organic section of the SERPs, (they would lose significant share if everyone thought it was just a search engine of advertisment), I maintain that the results are credible - at least for now.

The results may not always be what you’re looking for or expect, but the various criteria, algorhytmic and otherwise, used to determine the results favor an authentic process.

The question suggests that perhaps organic results are obtained by underhanded methodology, i.e. the way to “distort” a result is to do something black hat. And yes, that happens, so that is a distortion caused by ‘black hat’ SEO. Otherwise, simply optimizing your web pages properly only helps the search engines identify and possibly serve your web page as an appropriate result.

So simply optimizing and playing by the rules in itself does not, in my opinion, lead to the distortion of the results and nor is it consider advertising. Good PR perhaps, but not advertising.

Question: What are some of the consequence for mid to large sized companies who choose not to consider search engine marketing strategies?

For a mid to large sized company who relies on volume business in either BtoB or BtoC, to choose not to consider search engine marketing strategies because they don’t see the value is VERY hard to swallow. The consequences could be numerous but in my opinion the thought of alienating your audience by not being where they are is a certain slow death.

Many traditional marketers like to chalk up their lack of search marketing initiatives by stating emphatically “our audience doesn’t go online.” Which is the equivalent of stating that we’re going to give the online marketplace to our competitors, we believe in spending tons of money to “push” our message out to the masses, and we prefer to keep our COGS higher then necessary doing things the way we know how, the good ol fashion way.

When in doubt - invest in having professionals do a comprehensive opportunity analysis of your online marketplace. At least this way your CEO has the data to make a knowledgeable business decision.

Its amazing how many offline campaigns still launch today without any consideration for the online audience. Yes, this was a common occurrence several years ago as traditional marketers just began to acknowledge that the Internet was an influential medium and not going away. But what about now? How do multi-million dollar offline campaigns ignore their online target audience? Is it still unreasonable to accept that someone watching television will swing their chair around and search Google for a product they just saw on tv or read in the newspaper?

Search marketing taps into a massive online audience that continues to increase every day. More then 225 million Americans have Internet access. Search Marketing can be the most cost effective way to market your business or brand, connect with consumers online, attract qualified visitors to your website, increase brand awareness, increase overall visibility and of course, increase revenue. I just don’t understand what some folks are thinking, and why they choose to continue to miss huge opportunity online.