Roundtable: SEM Industry Steps on Slippery Ground
PromotionWorld is proud to present the new roundtable format interview where experts discuss questions and share opinion on industry hot topics.
In the first issue, SEM industry leaders analyze the key trends and events that have impacted the industry and give forecasts what is likely to happen in the months ahead.
I believe you will enjoy!
To start off, let’s introduce out participants:
Scott Buresh
Scott Buresh is the founder of Medium Blue, which was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld in 2006 and 2007. Mr. Buresh has contributed content to many publications including MarketingProfs, ZDNet, SiteProNews, WebProNews, DarwinMag, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.
He was also a contributor to The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Brown, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004).
Medium Blue's award-winning services include search engine optimization, visitor conversion, and online public relations.
Matt Foster
Matt Foster is the CEO of ArteWorks SEO, an internationally recognized search engine optimization firm based in Austin, Texas with a satellite office in Seattle. Mr. Foster has been active in the search marketing field since 1995.
ArteWorks SEO delivers professional, personalized, and proven SEO, website promotion, PPC management and Internet marketing strategies to a wide variety of clients across the globe.
ArteWorks SEO is a leader in the industry, setting the standard in emerging techniques such as social media optimization, viral marketing and video search engine optimization.
Roger Janik
Roger Janik is the President and Founder of ServerSideDesign – Website Design & Website Promotion Company.
ServerSideDesign was founded in 2004 and over the years has grown to a staff of well-rounded professionals that handle tasks such as SEO copywriting, SEO programming, link building, social networking, pay per click management, web design, and reporting.
ServerSideDesign is a proud member of the BBB, SEMPO and many other prestigious organizations. They were named as a top 10 company in 2007 for both Organic SEO and Link Popularity by Promotion World.
Frank Siano
Frank Siano, is the Search Marketing Strategist at eBridge Marketing Solutions Inc.. eBridge has been helping businesses with their online marketing strategies that drive traffic to their web sites through legitimate search engine optimization (SEO), link building and promotion, usability, and pay-per-click search engine marketing tactics since 2001.
He has been involved with pay per click marketing since its introduction to the online marketing industry and helped hundreds of marketing professionals and their websites implement effective pay per click campaigns.
Founded in 2001, eBridge Marketing Solutions has focused its efforts on providing an effective and efficient eBridge between advertisers and web publishers. Its progressive marketing solutions enable clients to effectively and efficiently meet their online marketing objectives and advertising needs.
Question 1: If Microsoft succeeds in acquiring Yahoo!, what is going to change for Search Engine Marketing Industry?
Scott Buresh
Provided that Microsoft acquires Yahoo!, most businesses will be in a bind – if they had good traffic and rankings from Ask.com and MSN for instance, but not Yahoo! – the merger will assuredly affect any past and current rankings. As far as SEO companies go, having only two serious engines makes the job easier – there are fewer algorithms to work with. However, it makes the opportunity for volatility much more likely. Before, if the Google or Yahoo! search engine changed its algorithm, you had three or four other engines to fall back on while you worked to update your practices. With only two major players, a tweak to either the Google or MSN/Yahoo! search engine algorithm could have much further reaching implications to individual companies in the search space.
Matt Foster
I simply do not see this as having a major
effect on the search marketing industry in the near future.
Roger Janik
MSN Live is actually a very capable search engine and while Yahoo offers a great engine in its own right, the reason for Microsoft acquiring Yahoo is not specifically search- it is ad revenue and their context ad service that they started a few years ago. Keep in Mind MSN really wants to compete against Google.
While you might see some synergy in the coming months after the two combine (if the deal goes through), as far as search, I don’t believe there will a major shift in the two engines already competent techniques.
IT should be noted that for those web developers that specifically build content for YPN (Yahoo Publishing Network), you will need to keep a close eye on any changes that occur. However, it is way too early to tell what if any changes will occur until a merger goes into effect. My advice is keep doing what you are doing and don’t change direction unless you see in the future a shift in approach. This is the typical wait-and-see strategy.
Frank Siano
If these 2 giants merge, we would then see a closer competitor to Google. Yahoo would benefit from Microsoft’s diversified revenue stream, and Microsoft would gain themselves a search engine that is much better than their current Live/MSN search engine. Microsoft definitely hasn’t played the search engine game too well in the past, so they hopefully have learned from those mistakes and are smartening up in thinking of buying an already successful engine, versus trying to build their own again.
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