| p>Search engine optimisation (optimization if you're in | | | | So now - the firms who are serious about search |
| the US), SEO, Search Marketing, whatever you prefer | | | | engine marketing, have simply taken paid backlinks out |
| to call it - is losing popularity with many marketers, who | | | | of their strategy (many, including me, did this a long |
| are being led to believe that organic search engine | | | | time ago, believing it would only be a matter of time |
| marketing is a thing of the past. | | | | before this happened.) but those firms who just saw |
| One of the main reasons for this, is that some | | | | SEO as an easy way to profit, have moved on. |
| companies who used to sell search marketing | | | | As a result many people are being told (or sold) that |
| services, who used to take advantages of shortcuts | | | | search engine marketing doesn't work any more, |
| & loopholes that are no longer available due to | | | | because of Google changing their algorithms too |
| search engines getting smarter, have changed tactics, | | | | frequently, it costs too much, takes too much time, isn't |
| and are promoting different marketing methods, | | | | effective - and other tactics to hide the real truth that |
| methods which don't require as much work. | | | | these companies don't want to offer organic search |
| A year or so ago, many search marketing firms had | | | | marketing services any more, as it means them having |
| an easy life, they charged clients a certain amount, | | | | to put in time & effort. |
| used a percentage of this amount to buy paid | | | | The truth is organic search engine marketing is alive |
| backlinks, and often did little else, and very little physical | | | | & kicking! |
| effort. This Made search engine marketing & | | | | As a professional SEO consultant - I can confirm that |
| optimization an easy way to make money. | | | | SEO is very much alive! Yes, it IS hard work, it takes a |
| However that changed when google started to | | | | lot of time & effort, so it's not cheap - BUT it can |
| discount paid backlinks - anyone who was achieving | | | | actually be cheap in comparison to pay per click |
| good search engine positions as a result of having link | | | | marketing. In fact recently I did a calculation to show |
| popularity built up by paid backlinks, or a percentage of | | | | one of my clients how much the traffic I had got for |
| paid backlinks, would more than likely have seen their | | | | them over the past 4 years would have cost them via |
| targeted search engine traffic dropping by large | | | | PPC marketing, and I worked out it would have cost |
| numbers, as their rankings drop down by either results, | | | | them roughly 7 times more, 700% more, to have got |
| or by pages, sometimes by many pages. | | | | this traffic via pay per click marketing! |