Great topic. I am one of those that believe in a holistic approach.
SEO - SEP- SEM : The one does not go without the other.
I agree with incredible help - as long as it is not taught in College we will have work.
I recently obtained a customer who has been around the block with the
SEO consultants. It was evident that his previous
SEO specialists only paid attention to his inbound links.
No on-page
SEO has been done whatsoever:
1) Validation of html failed dismally
2) Not even to talk about the meta tags
3) ALT tag spamming was at the order of the day
4) As well as comment spam
5) Page size is over 55.5 KB (sigh......)
That is just to mention a few. If this is the quality of work that
SEO consultants deliver out there then I am assured of work for quite some time to come.
One of my oldest clients just had their International supplier here. The only comment that they had about the local web site, was that we get more enquiries from our site than the they get from theirs. And might I add that they have a HUGE advertising budget.
I think the local agency is coining it nicely as they send some major and high priced item enquiries through to the US.
Having said that, the local client is not missing their target market - we position the site Internationally as well due to the fact that this client supplies the rest of Africa with product too.
Fact is, once you have done the on-page
SEO, the off-page
SEO becomes important - search engine positioning then plays a role and without a targeted, measurable marketing campaign,
SEO will also not work.