Defining Your Search Philosophy

When I began my career in search engine marketing back in 1996, there were no text books or classes,and very little in terms of comprehensive resources online from which to learn.

Regardless, I took it upon myself to crawl the Web, devouring any information I found on the topic ofInternet marketing. In those critical first few months of learning, I formulated my personal philosophyon search engine marketing (SEM), which continues to drive strategies for my clients today.

Being in the SEM arena for nearly 10 years has given me an opportunity to personally experience the growthand evolution of the industry. In that time, I've seen various strategies & tactics employed by clientsand SEM professionals alike. Those of us with a marketer's perspective have fared better in the longterm than those with a technology-centric approach.

Prior to my career in SEM, I was a high-tech public relations professional with a degree in businessadministration. My education and previous experience gave me what I believe is a unique perspective onSEM as a discipline. As a marketer, I tend to favor communications strategies that connect clients withtheir customers. Many of my industry counterparts with a computer science background, however, tend totake a technology approach to solving the SEM challenge. The additional benefit of a business degreeis the continual focus on return-on-investment (ROI) that is so critical to successful search enginemarketing efforts.

Back in 1996, my PR background gave me the knowledge and motivation to develop optimized press releases,connect with online publications and submit for hot sites and reciprocal links. Not until Google cameonto the scene in 1998, did link development become a critical SEM tactic. Thanks to my marketing-centricphilosophy, my clients had a two year jump on competitors and have largely maintained their visibilitybecause of it.

So what is my search philosophy? Simple. Content is king. I've talked about this at Search Engine Strategiesin the past, and continue to stress this in articles and with clients. It's all about relevant copy andlinks as well as clean code. That may seem obvious, but not to a technologist distracted by the latestalgorithm changes and code tricks.

Marketing-Centric Philosophy

Not all marketers are good, and not all programmers are bad, but there are tried and true strategiesand tactics preferred by each. The good marketer prefers to focus on creating a positive and productiveWeb experience for the site visitor, based on their needs and perspective. Visitor-driven content mightinclude case studies, data sheets, press releases and white papers. The bad marketer will develop contentbased on their or their client's needs and perspective, usually at the expense of the visitor. Internal-drivencontent might include extensive use of Flash, 3D, frames, image text and avatars.

Good marketers promote a Web site based on common sense and a keen understanding of the rules outlinedby the search engines. These would include creating and submitting keyword-optimized URL, title, METAtags and HTML copy. A bad marketer will push the programmers to develop new tricks to get the site tothe top of search results, which might include spider-sniffing, redirects, keyword-stuffing, link farmingand creative use of DIV or indent tags.

The beauty of taking a marketing and visitor-centric approach to SEM is that the fundamentals don't changeover time. I've applied the same basic SEO strategies and tactics since 1996. Yet if I were technologyor code-centric, I would have a headache from trying to stay on top of the latest SEO site developmenttricks. Examples of this include matching font colors with background to "hide" it from the visitor tojack up keyword density without compromising the experience as well as creating sites as blogs (i.e.Blogspot.com) in order to boost page rank and overall site visibility.

Pudding It Together

In 1998, my agency was approached to create a Web site related to the upcoming Disney/Touchstone motionpicture, A Civil Action, starring John Travolta. Based on a book, the movie covered a landmark legalcase involving leukemia clusters in Woburn, Massachusetts. As a defendant in the case, our client wasnot presented favorably in the book or screenplay, and they wanted to provide alternative informationabout the case on their own Web site. Disney put $40 million behind the marketing of the movie, includinga Web site, but if you do a search for the movie, guess who is still in the top ten search results sevenyears after the campaign concluded?

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. To achieve top ten visibility, we took the white hat route:relevant content, clean code and optimized copy. Disney took a different route: Flash-driven interactivesite with virtually no text, on a temporary Disney URL. Since the week of site launch, the Web site hasdominated search results for terms like "a civil action" and "civil action movie" for this very reason.

On the other side of the coin, one of our pharmaceutical clients competes with a large company out ofFrance, which prefers black hat search tactics. We didn't worry too much about their technology-centricapproach; we stayed focus on developing good content. Every time they inched their way into the top ten,the search engines would eventually figure out what they did to cheat their way in (IP spoofing, linkfarming, etc.) and kick them out within a week or so. The competitor outspent us, yet at every turn,we shut them down, as they refused to play by the rules.

The site visitor is the loser when marketers or technologists utilize black or gray hat SEO tactics togenerate visibility in search engines. Either the visitor has trouble finding the site, or the site theyeventually find is ugly, awkward or difficult to navigate. The end result is a negative site experiencethat translates into their lifelong brand impression of the company. That hurts sales and any vendorrelationships, which puts the SEM team in a precarious position.

While either side of the bench can have a white or black hat philosophy, there is no denying that thetechnology evolves at a breakneck pace, while sound marketing principles haven't changes in 100 years.The same goes for business. If you let customers drive your business, you will ultimately succeed. Ifyou let techno-trickery drive SEM efforts you will ultimately fail. So what's your SEM philosophy?

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