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ROI is discussed a lot in business, especially when it comes to marketing your services or products as everyone wants to spend their money wisely to achieve a high Return On Investment. We like many other Pay Per Click companies have seem an influx in new clients looking to maximize there presence on the web. However I do think that the PPC and SEO industry have a "little" tuff times ahead as there will be clients cutting there marketing spend. Only time will tell as they say.

Although, I don't believe we are going to have to wait at all. It's already happening. We develop Electronic Business Cards for companies and when we call them, there response is, "What you offer is a great product that would really help us; however, no one is buying anything right now."

Hmmm. We're there.

Brad

Electronic Business Cards

Very true indeed. Since link building is probably the hardest part of SEO, it makes sense that it is the most important one. And when google values links the most, this should of course be everyone's main focus. On the other hand, the links wont do much good unless you have some content to send those links too. I work with the rule of 90% link building and 10% content creating, and I think it is correct to spend this much time on getting those links.

Hi, We are starting to appeal to a global/european audience. Has anyone found it beneficial to submit some of their pages for seo in different languages? Thanks.

Michelle, http://www.singlecentral.com

Really Good information for SEO/SEM professionals

We initially went online so we didn't have to print a 80 page catalog, the expense was killing us as we are constantly adding new products and handmade jewelry lines and revising items to make them sell faster. The website is so easy to keep up to date.

Our main source of targeted customers comes from Wholesale Jewelry and Gift Shows, but more and more we are getting inquiries from around the world because of our website. It takes a lot of time and SEO work to get the targeted traffic so don't waste your efforts on the wrong keywords and phrases. Do your homework and you'll get lasting results!

The effort you put into your website shows to your customers, and the search engines as well. Approach it like a "regular" business and you will do well.

For sure we are seeing that online marketing so far as the current recession has progressed is NOT suffering the same declines in revenues as offline (direct mail, TV, print, etc.).

No secret here; smart marketers know that online is easier to measure and more cost effective to both short term ROI and long term branding.

And, with Google cracking down on paid links, SEOs and in house SEO/SEM professionals must get smarter about growing the popularity and traffic to their client or employer's web properties. This has the effect of driving the charlatans out of the industry and when the economy recovers those marketers who have stuck with online strategies will benefit significantly since people also are becoming ever more responsive to buying products and services online as they realize savings!

I have seen and heard many people is always hoping for a quick SEO solution result. But sadly, it can't be true. When you are doing SEO, it will require a certain amount of time i.e. can be days, months or years before it gradually showing result. Of course if you have money to advertise offline and online then you may see a quicker result. But then it might simply fade away once you have stopped advertising.

Therefore, I always feel that it will be best if you can do it step by step and you will see result in a gradual manner. That way, I do believe you will have a sticky traffic that will stay. Good quality content updating regularly should be in hand. Try not to deceive search engines as you may pay for the penalty.

Doing the right thing for your site and it will definitely help in bad times like recession. As long as you have good flow of traffic and targetted visitors, you should be able to put through the crisis.

To a certain extent I agree with this as what we're finding is businesses turning to SEO and search engine marketing in general as a smarter and cheaper way to generate sales.  Certainly what seems to be happening is that many clients are increasingly apathetic about print and other media advertising and are much more excited about the propsect of 1st page on Google though I think this has been going on for ages and isnt just becasse of recent events.

Of course Mody is not going to admit the fact that theres less work for SEOs...  Our company for one has reduce online advertising and I'm sure most companies are also doing this.

I'd wait before 1 - 2 years, and if it fails why not use that site to build link to another project.  If you have only one site for a company, it is still best to keep one since more and more companies are jumping into the bandwagon of online presence and you do not want to be left behind.  Don't give up, continue improving your site, so many things you can do to improve it.

How long would any of you keep a website running with no online sales? a few months? a year? 2 yrs? 3 yrs? Would you mind answering this ? Need to pick some brains.

While I do agree that SEM is more recession-proof than less effective marketing channels, here's what scares me:

1. Search is primarly a reactive, not demand-driving medium. Run a big campaign on TV, radio, etc., and you'll get search queries. Kill the big campaign and the queries will fall off. If your strategy is to use your competitors' high-profile marketing spend against them by "flooding the bottom of the buy funnel," (a typical strategy in SEM), this method will be less effective.

2. You can't have the search engines sucking all profit out of e-commerce and expect these companies to go on forever. Google et al make a science of charging exactly what the market will bear. E-commerce vendors managing to a CPO will be less able to afford top position and scale if their orders drop, as is widely expected as consumer spending shrinks. 

3. SEM functions are increasingly being brought in house. It's a stupid move from a performance perspective, but understandable given how crummy the reputation of the SEM industry is. This industry should have taken steps to weed out the charlatans and grifters five years ago, but because it hasn't, is highly vulnerable to the in-housing trend. As the job market gets worse, expect these in-house people to grow more vociferious in terms of dissing agencies as they fight desparately to hold on to their jobs.

4. Economic downturns are like wars, which have a life of their own and whose courses can't be predicted. While it's fine to claim that SEM will be immune, history is rife with once-healthy industries going under once the fire spreads too far.

I'm very familiar with target marketing and understand it. I've used and are using PPC marketing but I'm also aware of the click fraud invloved with it. I just have a small campaign going right now.

I struggle with SEO too because I've been taken advantage of by two different SEO firms over the last couple of years. For a web site that specializes in safety and security product, I don't feel very safe or secure.

As a result, I've turned to social marketing as alternative exposure for my site.

Everyone goes on about the advantages of seo marketing but as far as i am concerned it,s still not necesarily all there,lots of people from what i gather would give their right hand to be ranked 1or 2 on the first page of google,i m usually ranked 1or2 on the first page of google,yet i am stll not geting the type of trafic i would like,how about that?