A coup, according to one dictionary definition, can be described as "a brilliantly executed stratagem; a triumph."

Well, it seems many marketers, faced with slower sales and tighter budgets, discovered the same strategy for a "coup."

These marketers, in many cases put all their marketing resources into building market share via better search engine rankings.

How did they do it? Some hired professional optimization companies like my firm, SearchEnginePatrol.com. Others used Pay-Per-Click (PPC) services like Overture or Google AdWords. Still others did it themselves.

I’d like to call this a coup because in many cases, their competition didn’t see it coming. And many still don’t.

It's estimated there are over 10 million web sites. Of those, approximately 60% are commercial web sites. Yet, less than 10% do any search engine marketing with less than one percent of marketing budgets going towards search engine marketing.

All this despite a 2001 Overture report which stated that search engine marketing represented only 3% of all media spent, yet generated 70% of all leads when compared with direct mail and the yellow pages.

Even so, some ongoing concerns remain as to why SEO is not a significant part of a company's marketing budget. These reasons include:

• Awareness. For some companies, SEO is so new to them, it's not even on the radar screen.
• Credibility. Everyone has been spammed with ridiculous SEO claims. That makes it all the more difficult to state the case for legitimate, professional SEO firms.
• Mis-information. Many believe SEO is only for e-commerce web sites.

SEO = the ultimate online matchmaker?

Say you're watching TV, listening to the radio, or leafing through a magazine or newspaper. And what happens? You're interrupted with, you guessed it, an ad. And most likely the ad had nothing to do with what you were interested in to begin with.

Now consider Search Engine Optimization. The situation is totally different. That's because the buyers are seeking the sellers. These are potential customers that are already interested in a particular product or service. So much so, they're searching for it.

In that context, SEO plays matchmaker by bringing potential buyer and seller together.

Checklist: how can SEO benefit you?

There exists a misconception that SEO is only appropriate for e-commerce or retail-oriented sites. While it's true e-tailing sites benefit handsomely from SEO efforts, it's also true that SEO serves the needs of the traditional advertiser as well.

Perhaps this lack of respect regarding SEO can be traced to a lack of knowledge over what SEO is—and isn't. SEO is not an overnight sensation or a miracle cure. It takes work, time and money to yield results.

So is SEO right for you? Well, SEO has proven (despite it's "Rodney Dangerfield" image) to be effective in the following areas:

Of 21 different online activities, search engine inquiries ranked second only to email.
A survey by eMarketer of popular online activities among US Internet users showed that 93% used email while 79% used search engines.

And while SEO may not get the respect it deserves now, that does appear to be changing. Paid search is the fastest growing online ad medium and by 2008, paid search on pay-per-click search engines will reach $5 billion. (DM News, November 25, 2002)

Marc Harty is the owner of SearchEnginePatrol.com. His firm has obtained hundreds of top 10 search engine rankings for a diverse list of clients, including those in the financial, legal, human resources, educational and manufacturing sectors. Marc regularly leads Internet marketing seminars and is an authority on guerilla-style e-marketing.

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