Re: SEO versus PPC - the unending debate

From: Jeff Swan <sales_at_mazelles.com>
Date: Mon 28 Mar 2005 08:51:36 -0600

Seems like the debate is really about the definition of "a few" --
nobody seems to question that SEO techniques will be important, and
nobody seems to question that 20 - 30 web merchants per category can
benefit from SEO services, whether those are managed and delivered by
internal staff or outside SEO consultants/agencies.

What I would like to point out is that, gee, 20 - 30 merchants per
category that can benefit significantly from a particular advertising
technique is in some respects quite a lot! How many of those same
merchants could afford a national, or even a regional or local, tv
campaign? For a lot of categories, the answer might be zero - that is,
there is not a single "golf club shop" that can afford a national tv
campaign. I belong to a country club, read a lot of golf magazines,
watch a lot of golf on tv, and I don't recall a single ad for a golf
store on tv. Golfsmith is the only golf shop in town that even has more
than two locations throught the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Thus, for a
golf club store to be able to build and promote a web site to draw
traffic to its online store and to its retail locations via SEO, well,
if it can be in the top 10 or top 20 search results for, say, "Golf
Clubs Dallas", well, heck, that's pretty good!

My point is that while I agree that there are only about 20 - 30
merchants per category that can have a realistic expectation to get into
the top 10 -20 search results, that is still a viable way to promote
their business. I used to work for the ad agency that handled all the
advertising and promotion for the GTE yellow pages before it became
Verizon. My first job ever out of college was in network tv buying with
what is now Saatchi and Saatchi in NYC in 1982, back when there was no
web and cable was just starting out(we had to ask our cable company to
give us our MTV to our apartment on 81st and 1st!!). I am suggesting
that even when we are honestly skeptical, we still bear in mind that the
web has opened up a huge opportunity for thousands of small to mid-sized
businesses. I have a friend who owned a roofing company in Dallas --
he used to spend about $60,000 per year for his yellow pages ad back
around 1990. A roofing company you have never heard of spent $60,000
per year on a local yellow pages ad!! What if he spent half of that on
SEO?

Note: a few weeks ago I asked this list if they knew of any good online
resources for locating a job in online ad sales, and I want to thank you
for the many responses I got. Thanks! Very helpful, very encouraging.
I'm now working in sales for an SEO firm in the Dallas area, and really
enjoying learning about what's going on in this industry again.

I still own a small dessert bakery that primarily sells to restaurants
and hotels through Sysco, US Foodservice and Ben E. Keith wholesale
distributors, and it will be interesting to learn how we can grow
profits through online marketing. One thing I recently discovered:
there are more searches for the "Cheesecake Factory" restaurant than
there are for "Cheesecake"....I'm not sure what the implications of that
are, but I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere:)

Best regards,
Jeff Swan

Account Executive
http://www.bringmebiz.com
jeffs_at_bringmebiz.com
cell 214.632.1798





Received on Mon Mar 28 2005 - 08:51:36 CST