SEO not a part of most marketing budgets

[rcjordan]

"The report, "Search Engine Optimization Strategies: A Marketer's Perspective," found that nearly 46 percent of the marketers surveyed for the report said they allocate less than 0.5 percent of their annual marketing budgets on search engine optimization (SEO) services, while only 10 percent spend more than 25 percent of their marketing budgets on increasing their visibility on the Web."

"How important are search engines to the traffic of a Web site? According to a study by IMT Strategies that asked 400 consumer and business e-mail users how they discovered new Web sites, 45.8 percent cited search engines as their top method. Word of mouth was mentioned by 20.3 percent, followed by random surfing at 19.9 percent. Banner ads (1 percent) trailed accidents (2.1 percent), newspapers (1.4 percent) and television (1.4 percent)."

Search Engines Fail to Draw Marketing Dollars [newmedia.com]

[heini]

So why is that?
itīs been said time and again that sites get found by SEs, not banner ads or anything. TV Spots? The costs compared to SEO consultation are immense.
Are the sharp business owners all sleeping? Is it because of a potentially negative image of SEO? Is it because they donīt know much about SEO and so feel, they canīt control the work done?

Any ideas?

[Bentler]

SEO is too abstract for many people to understand. The prevailing attitude seems to be "build a website and you're done" or maybe do a little bit of marketing as an afterthought using obvious or traditional marketing tools. It's not that big a deal though, because it gives great advantage to those who do understand: the web is, well, a web.

[agerhart]

>>>Is it because they donīt know much about SEO and so feel, they canīt control the work done?

Bingo!....I had some guy tell me that he thought it was too risky

I wanted to tell this guy that driving your car is risky as well

[rcjordan]

>Is it because they donīt know much about SEO and so feel, they canīt control the work done?

I think it's really more that they don't know much about the search engines themselves and have a vague, unfounded trust that people will find them somehow. Part of that misguided faith is being promoted by the "old school" marketing managers in their ranks who do not understand the new, different mechanisms and methodologies and revert to promoting the site via traditional media.

[Gregg Stephenson]

A recent article I read attributed it to the fact that "until recently there was no way to quantify the actual value of search engine marketing".

However, they did report that there is hope. "A case in point is the recent report from Jupiter Media Metrix affirming that paid search placement is now a successful advertising model."

Could this be a starting place?

[rcjordan]

>Part of that misguided faith is being promoted by the "old school" marketing managers in their ranks who do not understand the new, different mechanisms

I hate to pick up from my own post, but it touches upon a sore spot. I'd like to restate/reorient something a little more strongly... In many organizations there is a great fear of the web as a threat to the marketing staff. They have long used the relative LACK of tracking and finite measurement to keep the owner and/or upper management from knowing just how poorly some of their traditional (particularly print) campaigns perform. They are deathly afraid that web accountability standards will infect the other media campaigns they now comfortably manage.

[Macguru]

Very good find RC,

Most of my clients are Web design agencies. Only a few of them get in touch with me before they start. Some very few use the market study provided for each case to sell their services. They even put in writing that some part of the budget is saved for later SE placement interventions before they ink the contract.

The feed back I get from those clients is often "We had the contract because we were the only ones talking about this stuff."

Much efforts have to be put in education.

50% education
50% paper work so they can control what was done

and another

50% to just do it.

[Gregg Stephenson]

Rcjordan,

Point well made. I've dealt with all of the top 5 agencies and I can't say that I disagree.

It continues to amaze me what they get away with.