Search Engine Marketing Specialist

Posted on 10. Jul, 2009 by Rauch in Featured Articles, Marketing & Social Media, Search

While working for a retail shopping portal, I was able to observe over 2,500 businesses as they struggled to make money online. Some were successful but many more were not…and although my stock options never paid off due to a certain bubble…there is no question the experience and inside look did.

Learn more about he parties involved in Search Engine Marketing and the environment in which they come together. Business owners, find questions and answers to challenges you will face in your effort to form a sound search engine marketing strategy for your Web Property.

Search Engie Marketing Today

I believe there is a significant problem with the search engine marketing industry today. This problem exists because of the parties involved and the environment in which they come together. As such, I will first discuss the party’s involved, and then go on to talk about the resulting environment. Lastly, I will discuss what seems to be the most logical solution.

The Search Engine Optimization Specialist

True Search Sngine Marketing Specialists must spend an immense amount of time doing testing and research to maintain the knowledge necessary to achieve significantly successful search engine results. On top of this, it takes an incredibly unique ability to visualize that which cannot be seen…it is truly a special talent.

Most truly successful search engine marketing specialists are able to provide an income sufficient to work for themselves and are not willing to be underpaid to give away what part of it they can, even if it is only today’s picture. This does, however, leave them in a position where they are left to work with comparatively limited resources a good portion of the time, especially when considering product and services support. On top of this, they are probably not left with the time, or most often even the skills, to assemble the resources necessary to support an incredibly successful enterprise.

The Search Engine Marketing Company

Most times a search engine marketing company will be an overrepresentation of an individual or a small group of people who are willing to share the applicable skills for an adequate fee (usually sold as an enterprise level solution when it is a small group). These situations are very much like the above.

The other side of this is when you have a larger search engine marketing company that sets out to do this work but doesn’t necessarily have what it takes, although the get by for a time since they have significant resources. In these instances, clients will be provided with more or less a ‘plug-in’ service, whereas the client website is basically plugged into a core value network. This methodology can and does work in the beginning. The problem is that this type of value isn’t re-creatable to the extent a larger search engine marketing company needs it to be, especially when they aim to support a large number of clients to cover largely inefficient overhead. Clients in this space see good results upfront, but as the network is relied upon more heavily as the provider takes on new clients, the value and results tend to fade away.

The Search Engine Marketing Client

In contrast, we have companies or wealthy individuals with all the resources necessary to create and sustain a highly successful online enterprise, but in that, can never fully understand the finer points of achieving search engine success for a website. Most times, this group simply doesn’t have the time or inclination or even insight to adequately position this piece of their business, as necessary as it most often is.

The Search Engine Marketing Climate

Quality of worldwide search engine results aside, these parties working together as they do result in an incredibly difficult business situation. On one hand, we have business owners or managers looking to hire a search engine specialist, but in their mind view the need as simply another employee or employee level contract. And on the other hand, we have self-supported search engine specialists with all the ability and knowledge necessary to make all the difference for an online enterprise, but feel it necessary to be compensated adequately for this rare and valuable talent.

All this brings us to the current situation, where true search engine optimization specialists seek to charge extremely high monthly fees, not necessarily for the work being done (unless it is a large company where these funds are utilized in a largely inefficient fashion), but as much for the information they have no choice but to give up as they work on a project. In this, you are left with an intricate game of cat-and-mouse where sooner or later upper management or the business owners themselves find it necessary to seek understanding about exactly what is going on in an effort to justify costs. Search engine specialists, in turn, become consumed with protecting certain levels of information as not to give the company a false sense of security, as it many times creates a perception that the specialist is no longer needed.

In the end, the company or business owner will normally decide to bring the program in-house once they feel they have a handle on things. The problem is that even if they did understand everything perfectly at the time, as unlikely as that may be, the search engines are almost constantly changing. Algorithms continue to grow in complexity, and once these owners and managers are forced to deal with a few setbacks (which sooner or later happens to everyone), they quickly go from a feeling of confidence to a feeling of confusion.

Can you simply train a Search Engine Optimization Specialist?

There are a few reasons why training a Search Engine Optimization Specialist is an incredibly difficult task. First, you have to find someone with a background in marketing online and off. Given this, they also need to be what I call a “statistics freak”. Now, if you are lucky to find someone who fits the bill with regard to these two things, you have a shot. You can get them reading the forums and doing the research and even attending Internet Marketing or SEO conferences.

Given a level of success in all of this, you just might start seeing marginal results, but unfortunately, to achieve true success one must also be a visionary. You can have someone read and read and read, but when the answer is found in the reading, it is already too late. You end up being just another of the masses chasing the game while getting a taste here and there. Truth be told, the real gravy in this space is seeing things before anyone else and being able to execute on that foresight.

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