The SES In-House Forum On SEM

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Mike McDonald kept himself occupied before Google Dance by taking in a roundtable Q&A at SES 2005 on driving SEM in house.

A number of speakers from earlier In House Track sessions were joined by some new faces and spent the afternoon Q&A session fielding questions from attendees.

Q: What would you consider to be the principal positions necessary to begin an in-house SEO program?

Bill Hunt of Global Strategies said you need a good project manager/evangelist, and a coordinator to help with all the resulting paper shuffle. Mike Moran of IBM, and Hunt's co-author on “Search Engine Marketing Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site,” said to develop standard and processes and get them in place early.

Bill Hartzer, SEO for Intec Telecom Solutions, listed ppc manager, blogger, link builder, and copywriter along with the project manager position.

Q: What does the shift to more personalization in SERPs mean for SEO? If everybody has their own results, how can you have optimization?

Moran observed that the future of personalized results probably means there is no number 1 ranking anymore. Who is number 1 will vary by market segment. Metrics will play a role here.

Marshall Simmonds, VP Enterprise Search Marketing, New York Times (which owns About.com), sees a larger role for the use of APIs by developers to create more effective measuring tools that better handle the data provided by the advertising firms.

Mary Bettinson, Web Marketing Director for N.A.D.A Guides, expects to see more cost-per-action deals, like those offered by Snap.com, come into play. Hunt observed that users do an average of 12 searches to get to their objective; sites need to be able to answer the question “Where is this person in their intent?”

And Moran sees improved relevance being part of the next phase of search technology. That shift will see search engines trying to figure out what people mean by what they ask.

Hartzler and Dustin Woodard, SEO & Web Analytics Manager for Allrecipes.com echoed the need for site owners to provide great content. Personalization will make content even more critical to a site's success.

Moran addressed a question on best ways to justify internal SEO dollars for creating in-house positions by citing the need to model a site and determine how much a given customer action would be worth in dollars and cents. Once you have that value, you have a justification.

On the topic of various marketing models like CPC and CPA, and the growing presence of vertical search portals, Moran touched on the need to understand the metrics a business needs. Then you can see which models fit best.

Bettinson said her company tries all the models and does continual testing with them. She thinks it's always worth testing all of the models continuously to keep themselves aware of the best option for their needs.

Our man on the scene, Mike McDonald, wraps up by saying: “The lesson seems to be that it isn't really smart to out and out dismiss any marketing model. PPC, CPA, vertical searches etc., all have the potential for success (or failure) depending on the goals of your company.”