“Full Service” Search Marketing

For a couple years now, I have seen a pattern of business/site owners focusing solely on Google AdWords. There are even firms out there (who call themselves a “search engine marketing agency”) that only do Google PPC. If you only manage AdWords accounts, then you can’t really call yourself or your agency a Search Engine Marketing professional(s).

A true search engine marketer understands the value of making sure your business is visible across the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) both organically and paid. Google AdWords is not the end all be all. Now, I do understand is it between 70-80% of the market; however that 20-30% that is made up of Yahoo and MSN still contains millions of searches per day…and quality searches at that…I’ll bash Ask, Looksmart and the other 2nd & 3rd tier engines regarding their click fraud in a later blog maybe ;-)

What marketer would ever say, “I don’t feel like being visible to everyone who actively looks for my products”? Well, if you only run AdWords, that is exactly what you’re saying…that the Yahoo and MSN consumers aren’t worth your time. Assuming you run campaigns across the engines, a benefit is that you could even pick and choose which campaigns you run on which engines. You may find that some product campaigns perform differently on one engine than another…you can then take that information and run search engine-specific campaigns…that is when you have true search engine marketing strategy running on all cylinders.

Also, I realize that along with Google being the leader in the industry, they also have tools for PPC managers that make researching, implementing and optimizing campaigns MUCH easier than their competitors. For that I highly recommend using Google as your sandbox for new campaigns or test initiatives; however don’t just stay inside Google’s world (no matter how bad they are trying to rule it)… once you have the campaign structure set up, move right on into launching on Yahoo and MSN as well. You won’t get the same amount of traffic you get from Google but you’ll ensure your market coverage. Never put all your eggs in one basket…with search engine marketing, you always want to diversify. We preach keyword diversification…so why not preach search engine diversification.