UKNM: seo budgets

[Ian Tester]

lucy asked / pitched


"I want to know if anyone has any thoughts on why companies seem to spend

such a small percentage of their online marketing budgets on SEO, Directory

submissions and directory advertising when supposedly 80% of people use

Search Engines and Directories as their first port of call in finding what

they want online."


a lot of factors as far as i can see -


1. too many people in the industry don't understand the technology behind

their sites. as a whole, the industry has too many old-world marketers who

simply don't bother to learn the new rules. this is a general problem   -not

enough web marketers, so just get someone in from P&G - they *must* know

what they're doing, huh, cos they sold shampoo?

2. these old-world marketers are far more interested in "sexy" marketing -

they know it, it's easier. brand, brand, brand

3. site design teams are in general *crap* at optimising sites for engines -

even leading agencies just don't pout in the work to learn about it. prove

me wrong, go on.

4. the figures around search engine referrals are dodgy at best anyway - i'd

love to see the methodology for your 50% figure. . .

5. not *all* sites gather / want a lot of referrals from search engines - it

may not fit with their business model.

6. it's not a problem of measurement. stripping site logs on even the most

basic site logs is child's play, with a little application. parsing search

terms from referrers also. there's no excuse.

7. there are *very* few people that really know how search engines work, and

a lot of people that think they do. i've tripped up, with even basic

knowledge, a lot of so-called "specialists". . .

8. lots of modern site serving technology, e.g dynamic pages actually works

against indexing.


i feel the hatred coming down already.


i


Ian Tester, Business Accelerator, EMAP Digital

http://www.emap.com - building the most exciting media company in the world

Exmouth House, Pine Street, London EC1V 0JL, UK

T 020 7868 7574 F 020 7868 7514 M 07880 557692 E

ian [dot] testeremapdigital [dot] com

AIM iantester



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