Natural Search is dead, long live SEO!
Last week I had a very interesting debate with another marketer, who to spare his blushes I'm not going to mention here. The conversation went like something like this.
The gentleman concerned insisted that the search engines are always trying to find a way to overcome the process of search engine optimisation. Thereby anyone involved in the practice may achieve results for a period, until the technique is identified and an “antidote” found. He then went on to insist that the only sure way to market a website online was to pay for your clicks through the likes of adwords or adsense, or by affiliate marketing or paying for advertising real estate.
I have to say that to a point I do agree, however, there is one major flaw in his theory. As more advertisers realise the power of online advertising and internet marketing in general, more players will be bidding for the top spots in Pay Per Click (PPC). This then leads, as with every other market in the world, to the laws of supply and demand. The supply is the rewards of traffic from PPC, the demand is dictated by the number of players willing to part with cash for that traffic. End result is up goes the bid price.
To reinforce this I cited the experience of a recent client whose PPC budget 2 years ago was £40,000. Last year their budget rose to £80,000, this year to stand still their budget would have needed to have been £120,000. Fortunately his natural search campaign is delivering excellent results so the spend has actually decreased to about a quarter of that from 2 years ago.
So whilst the prospect of PPC taking over from an organisations internet strategy is a good argument, natural search listings and the practice of SEO is not dead – in fact its position is actually becoming stronger, but only if you have the time, the money and the expertise to implement it.
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17.07.2007.
