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If_Big_Ad_Agencies_Cant_Handle_Search_Engine_Marketing_Whats_A_Small_Business_To_Do
| If Big Ad Agencies Cant Handle Search Engine Marketing, Whats A Small Business To Do?
A recent online news article entitled “Five Reasons Why Ad
Agencies Hate Search Engine Marketing” struck a responsive chord
in the search engine marketing (SEM) community. Lots of posts,
both critical and supportive, showed up in online forums. The
article made some points that I have noted myself in previous
articles. The most important ones are that good SEM is labor
intensive and expensive, that profitability is hard to achieve,
and that the search engine companies keep moving the goal posts.
I think it’s worthwhile considering the extent to which these
problems also impact localized search engine marketing.
Naturally, the search engines themselves, for example Google and
Yahoo, have evolved with an eye to the big, national customers.
Given that background, they have developed tools and systems in
the PPC arena that seem to assume the end user, whether an ad
agency or a small business owner, has lots of time and resources
to work with the tools. Anyone who has even dabbled in the
administration of keyword bidding on these search engines knows
how complex it can quickly become. Hence, the system is stacked
against the small business owner from the get-go, because he or
she does not have the time or resources to administer these
programs. The author of the article asserts that a camapaign of
$50,000 per month is necessary to turn a profit on paid search
advertising. While I would question the universal validity of
this statement, it does highlight the time and resources dilemma
of running a successful paid search program.
Why is it so complicated to run a good PPC campaign? At bottom,
because the model itself requires the advertiser to get inside
the head of the consumer in an unprecedented manner. As an
example: an important key phrase for my own business is “web
design.” So, I bid on this phrase. (This concept itself,
“bidding” on a keyword, is a truly alien advertising concept to
most small business owners I know). And every day, I get
visitors to my website who are interested in “web design.” But
does this mean they want to hire a web design firm? Who knows.
Maybe they are writing a term paper. Maybe they want to steal
some ideas. Maybe they are the competition (or worse yet, a
flunky hired by the competition to click on the other guy’s
ads). Maybe, maybe, maybe. But I’ve spent my money, and taken my
chances. Now, of course, there are lots of ways to hedge my bet.
Keyword suggestion tools, bid management tools, etc. But that’s
where the time and expense comes in. As a small business owner,
I can’t afford much of either. Controlling for the variables is
what makes this kind of search engine marketing prohibitive for
most small businesses. As an alternative, the various IYP
programs offer a more targetted audience for the advertiser, as
well as stable pricing and predictable placement. IYP is also a
model that small businesses recognize, because of the crossover
from print. The search engine audience may be larger, but the
IYP audience is surely more qualified.
The other major point that was made in the article, besides the
inter-related points of expense and profitability, is that the
search engine companies themselves keep changing the rules,
thereby making a tough job almost impossible. Absolutely true.
It seems that Google and Overture come out with a new option,
and a new set of rules, almost every day. Of course, it’s not
really every day – it just seems that way to those of us
laboring to keep up with the field. What is most irritating is
the feeling that they are doing this to keep up with each other,
not to benefit the consumer or the advertiser. These competitive
forces do little to help the industry mature, a phenomenon we
have seen many times in the high-tech arena. Again, it comes
down to resources – if the big ad agencies are having trouble
keeping up with the changes, can the small business hope to
adapt? Not really. Not until the dust settles, at least.
One facet of search engine marketing that holds some hope for
small local businesses is search engine optimization (SEO) with
geographic modifiers. In this scenario, the optimization of a
website for organic search is made infinitely easier if a
geographic term is added. For example, optimizing for the term
“chiropractor” on a national level would obviously be useless;
optimizing for “chiropractor, CT” has been successful in giving
one of my own clients an excellent ranking on Yahoo, achieved
through fairly basic SEO. Even here though, there are
limitations. It may be difficult for the small business owner to
find good SEO. And even geo-modified SEO is only good for
certain categories: “attorneys New York” entered on Google
brings up a plethora of entries that are obviously highly
competititive. It depends on the industry, and on the local
market in question.
It was high time an article like the one in question was
published. Search engine marketing, and website promotion, is an
absolutely chaotic, immature discipline, made worse by the
get-rich-quick scams that are littering the Internet. Choices
for small businesses abound, but they must be made very
carefully. One project currently in development here at Small
Business Online, http://www.SmallBusinessOnline.net is a website
promotion model that approaches the problem from the opposite
end – the consumer. If the advertiser can’t reliably and
consistently place his message in front of the right consumer,
then perhaps the consumer needs to be directed to the advertiser
by a different mechanism. At Small Business Online we are
working on a program that will cost-effectively help drive
traffic to specific advertising. Certainly, as the shortcomings
of SEM via the major engines are scrutinized, more creative
methods for linking advertisers with consumers in a
cost-effective manner will eventually bubble up. In the
meantime, the small business needs to keep in mind that if
Madison Avenue is struggling with SEM, then it’s fraught with
risk. More than ever, caveat emptor should be the rule.
About the author:
Neil Street is co-founder of Small Business Online, based in
Wilton, CT., a web design and internet marketing company
dedicated to the Internet needs of the small business. His
website is at http://www.smallbusinessonline.net Send email to
neil@smallbusinessonline.net He can also be reached at
(203)761-7992.
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