I’m not sure exactly when it happened but it happened. Search engine marketing has become mainstream. Businesses of all sizes no longer debate whether or not they need to do search engine marketing, the debate has become: “Do we do it in-house or do we hire an experienced SEM agency.”
Not long ago, many businesses who were jumping on the SEM band wagon decided the SEO component of SEM required technical expertise that they did not have internally, so it was a fairly easy decision to farm that piece out to an experienced SEO firm. Conversely, many companies felt they could manage the paid search component in-house since it was a fairly straightforward process in that you could completely control your rankings simply by outbidding your competitors.
The SEM world is now a very different place. If you are considering the option of managing your campaign in-house, make sure you know what you are getting into. Mistakes will cost you in terms of rankings and revenue, and you can quickly burn through your SEM budget.
On the organic side of SEM, gone are the days of doorway pages, invisible text, and other black hat short cuts to success. Competition for the top spots is stronger than ever and the search engines have strict rules about how you can optimize your site to improve rankings.
Optimizing your paid search engine marketing campaign has also become very sophisticated. Paid search engine marketers need to have in depth knowledge of the search engine tools and features. The days of controlling your ranking based solely on your bid are over. Nowadays, your quality score is at least as important as your bids. Keyphrase relevancy, click-through rate, ad quality, landing page quality, and site quality are all factors that impact your ranking and the amount you pay per click. It may not be rocket science but its getting there. Furthermore each search engine has its own unique algorithm for ranking paid search ads, unique rules for writing ads, different match type options, different methods for handling plurals and mis-spellings, different demographics and psychographics, and well you get the idea. Its not as easy as it used to be. And oh yeah, the rules and tools are constantly changing.
Just remember, at the end of the day it all comes down to your return on investment. Good search engine marketing not only requires good technical and marketing skills, it requires good business skills. Do you have what it takes?
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