It is a strange phenomenon, almost every marketing exec one deals with has a mental block when it comes to search engine marketing (SEM). The industry itself talks constantly about its benefits and the best practices to employ, except most people outside this cosseted cabal do not fully appreciate the huge benfits that can be derived from successful SEM.
Measuring the results of SEM is, to say the least, an imprecise art form. Its practioners glean what they can from Google's executives like Matt Cutts and make insightful suggestions to one another as to how practices of the "dark art" can be best be applied empirically.
As such, quality search engine optimization (SEO) is a significantly undervalued service and yet it has the potential to significantly transform the profitability of any business. Its cost-effectiveness as a marketing tool is far superior if compared to more traditional marketing methods and yet, in spite of this, many management team executives, sometimes wholly ignorant of its advances, refuse to acknowledge this.
How many marketing execs, across a broad spectrum of industry sectors, really have the skills to coherently relate information about their "products" in a meaningful way on the internet? The website itself, perhaps, but most are reluctant to perceive any real value in spending on SEM. In fact, while the internet is a familiar and an obvious marketing tool to most of us in the industry, the world's execs seem not even ready to play catch-up.
According to the article "Quality SEO Pays for Itself" by Search Engine Watch: "Educating people...is part of changing the industry's image, and quality SEOs share responsibility in creating this reality...However, since this value proposition is not yet understood by many management team executives, it often lacks the executive support it requires both in terms of financial resources and supporting needed operational changes."
The article goes on to suggest that SEM might be the "largest change management project in history" and to increase "budget transformational processes to search engine marketing and SEO content strategy, companies must hire a new breed of CEO and CMO".
Executive management teams capable of navigating this complex convergence of traditional marketing methodologies and SEM are rare. And this dynamic will not alter dramatically until there are senior execs on the board of directors who fully understand and can hold their managers accountable for results. Until this happens on a broad scale, the budget shift from traditional marketing spend to SEM and content strategy cannot truly start to accelerate.
This means that we need to educate business about the real benefits of SEO. But it also needs a cultural shift so that business execs understand the value that SEO can bring to their business.
Our industry has a long way to go yet in assembling and disseminating this concept. With directories moribund and other short-cuts removed from the link building process, providing services today belongs in the hands of the wordsmith who knows the SEO game. It is surprising that in 2009 not a lot of marketing execs understand this yet.
