Comments on: Search and Destroy – SEM Without SEO?

By: counter strike

counter strike — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:57:19 +0000

In my opinion better SEO is better like SEM
maybe SEM are more natural.. but
if you have good CMS SEO is enough

for me it works very good

By: SEO Scotland

SEO Scotland — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:00:02 +0000

I actually had the benefit of meeting a CEO that wanted SEO first and the rest of SEM second. It was a good plan, they quickly closed done their competition on natural search terms and then used SEM to eat into there market share. Nice way of doing it.

By: Derek

Derek — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:30:24 +0000

While it is known that more users will click organic results in comparison to paid ads, businesses with decent budgets should be looking at both PPC and SEO as part of their online marketing strategy and learn how the two pieces interconnect. Taking your analogy further, PPC allows the shopper to figure out what foods work best with their diet and lifestyle, making better decisions on what they should be growing and producing (the SEO strategy) for long-term health and well being.

If a company wants to rank well organically for a competitive keyword, a well crafted PPC campaign can provide data not only into search volumes and keyword variations but also give the company time and insight into how to fine tune their pages and content, so that organic an SEO strategies can have more likelihood of success. Note that I’m making an assumption here that PPC campaigns are using traditional components of their web site for their paid strategy – versus landing pages built exclusively for conversions (outside of the traditional website structure).

Conversely, it may become apparent that a keyword strategy, originally sought after, does not resonate in PPC with the prospected customers/visitors. If conversion rates are poor on a consistent basis, there may be less reason to exhaust time and efforts in working on an organic search strategy.

Thanks for linking to the article, it was an interesting read!

By: pittfall

pittfall — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:29:41 +0000

Tony,
Thanks for the comment. Advertising, whether it be ppc, cpm, or others, are very important and I feel that they will not go away, however, you should have a balance of each. If you overlook one or the other, you are not getting the full benefit from your marketing program.

By: Tony Whittam

Tony Whittam — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:29:20 +0000

I feel both are as important as each other, PPC can help to bring targetted visitors to your site while long term SEO is getting you onto page 1 in the natural listings, once this is achieved you can pull back on the PPC and save on your SEM costs, then if anything disasterous should happen like a major change in Google algorythm the PPC can step up again until things are back on track.

I do find that people are more inclined to trust natural listings rather than sponsored listings but each have their place.

By: pittfall

pittfall — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:28:09 +0000

Tim and Meble,
Thank you for your comments.

As many in the SEM industry can plainly see, aspects of SEO have trickled into the search marketing landscape.

Tim, I would tend to agree with you about natural search. As a (engine classified) super user, I tend to lean towards the natural listings, however, when searching for a product, I will click on marketer’s links.

Keep up the good work SEOs, and look for us in the top-ten if you are only using SEM!

By: Meble Biurowe

Meble Biurowe — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:27:35 +0000

I think you should always use both seo & sem. If you have a large web site seo can have better results than sem.

By: Tim Lang

Tim Lang — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:26:14 +0000

We have noticed that as users start to use search they are unable to articulate a PPC from natural search. First page is just as vital as either but experienced search users still perfer and dominate natural search.
Natural search is complex but the return is greater.

theseoagency

By: pittfall

pittfall — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:53:11 +0000

Ranter,
Thanks for the comment.

I would tend to agree with you. The initial outlay for a website owner is more in regards to time and effort, however, it does take more than a “moron” to make a SEM campaign successful. In fact, many of the aspects of SEO can and should be applied to SEM to achieve the best results.

By: SEO Ranter

SEO Ranter — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:09:11 +0000

SEO is absolutely required; it’s much cheaper to maintain than SEM, although the initial outlay can be immense. A significant problem that I see, from the corporate point of view, is that there’s a learning curve before you can choose and evaluate an effective SEO strategy or partner. The corresponding curve for SEM is much lower, and any moron can look at a report on an SEM campaign and decide if it’s cost effective; something that’s utterly untrue for SEO.

It seems that good metrics are still wanted, too, but we’ll get there as an industry.