• Section: Increase Traffic - Category: SEO/SEM
• Written by Katy Orell

In the Beginning, there was the internet

ems to have started an SEM firm. In fact, it has been such a lucrative industry that some large ad agencies are opening their own firms. Companies have shelled out millions to educate and train their employees on every aspect of optimization, pay per click, link building and internet marketing. Everyone is hungry and scrambling to get a piece of the million dollar pie.

The upside of this exponential growth is that search engine marketing is finally being accepted as a valuable marketing channel, but have the strategies and tactics used to build a successful and "white hat" adhering firm been sacrificed all in the name of money?

To delve into this question one first has to look at the basic structure of a good SEM campaign. There is so much research that goes into each campaign beginning with understanding the client's company. Once an SEM firm knows how their client operates, they can create a unique campaign to decide whether to utilizing keyword selection, content creation and/or link building will convert visitors into customers and positively impact the ROI.

Unfortunately, some SEM firms lack the patience, knowledge or funding to correctly implement the fundamentals of a good campaign. To make up for their shortcomings in SEM expertise, some firms may throw out a presumptuous "guarantee" ensuring the number one spot in organic search for a website in order to seal the deal with clients. In SEM, however, there are no guarantees. Search engine algorithms change frequently, so the chances of one website dominating the number one spot for more than a few days can NEVER be guaranteed.

SEM firms cannot always be to blame, as software is also suspect. Software has undoubtedly eased the way most SEM firms approach construction of complex paid search campaigns, but some agencies aren't looking at the data and making smart business decisions. Software cannot think strategically. In order to manage a successful paid search campaign, understanding the financial metrics of a client's company and installing strategic business rules are crucial. It's not enough to just do, firms must test and measure, then test and measure again. It's important to think, analyze, test and strategize to ensure that the campaign is the best it can possibly be.

In "natural" or "organic" search, some SEM firms seem to lose sight of what they are really doing for their client. These firms will hide behind the complexity of SEO and keep clients in the dark, blaming the lack of results on "changes in the algorithms".
Taking over accounts of clients who have previously been misguided by their former SEM firms is sometimes a depressing reality. It allows the new firm insight of what the former firm did incorrectly; whether it's discovering that the wrong strategy had been employed or actual results were being construed, it's embarrassing for "white hat" SEM firms to clean up the messes of malpractice.

So how can this all be remedied?

The key to having a successful SEM campaign means knowing basic termino

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