Does Your Search Marketing Team Set the Gold Standard?

As a search marketing agency develops its positioning in the market, whether it is to serve a particular business niche; work with small to medium sized businesses or as a market leader, developing enterprise level solutions for multinationals; it is important to set and maintain a service benchmark by which the agency can be measured.
Within [...]

SEMPO – From Greatness to Mediocrity?

Did you know that within the search marketing industry, there exists a professional non-profit organization built to provide a foundation for industry growth through fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry, generating research and creating a better understanding of search and its role in marketing?
No? Well, there is: SEMPO – Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.
Maybe [...]

Going Off Track, Hurts You & Your Clients

Sitting at the first Manic Street Preachers concert in Vancouver in 10 years, I began musing about all the people who came to the show so many years on, to show their continuing support of the band. We waited in line for the doors to open, then we waited for another two hours until 10pm [...]

Oh, That’s Right, We Don’t Need SEO Standards

What is SEO?
“Suppose it’s got something to do with when doing a search, getting the most and best hits back, i.e. no crap.”
“A practise that improves performance and relevance of result sets for search engines. Never heard of it as a service.”
“No understanding at all…is it something that makes Google work better?”
“My guess is that [...]

Talking Standards at SEM Scholarship Contest 2009

This year I have decided to add my voice to the writers who have come before me and put forward a piece in the SEM Scholarship contest which is now in its 4th year!
On Thursday, the first round of entries were posted so the excitement of the competition begins!
My piece, Oh, That’s Right, We Don’t [...]

Striking Out WITHOUT SEO Standards

A strong prospect calls your Search Engine Marketing agency and as a Business Development Executive, you take the call. The client asks you what the difference is between SEM and SEO. He also enquires what the most important on-page elements of an SEO campaign are. After you have answered, the prospect responds that of the [...]

Rational Expectations in the Search Industry

The theory of rational expectations is considered an economic school of thought; which is also regarded as a ubiquitous modelling technique that is used widely throughout economics and can be more broadly applied to other fields.
Rational expectations describe the many economic situations in which the outcome depends partly on what people expect to happen.
People abandon [...]