The theme of the letter is in line with the open letter written to the Commission by search industry vet Danny Sullivan earlier this year, in which he called for the FTC to scrutinize Google as well its competitors when it comes to labeling search results that have been paid for.

“Should the FTC undertake such a review, in addition to signifying the understanding that recent extreme antitrust claims against Google search practices lack merit, it would also be taken to mean that the FTC perceives the benefits of taking a broader, industry-wide approach to search labeling and transparency – a positive position,” SEMPO says.

SEMPO has spoken out against FTC regulation of Google in the past. See our interview with Chairman Chris Boggs here.

“As we have publicly stated previously, the search function is not a government-run utility, established by law and thus subject to bureaucratic oversight, but a service provided to consumers and businesses by private companies, which have set up their operations using their own principles, proprietary technologies and algorithms. We feel strongly, for a host of reasons, that regulating individual companies’ search algorithms is undesirable,” the letter continues.

“Nonetheless, we believe that a level playing field should be ensured for search as a whole – both for the protection of consumers and in furtherance of fair competition within the search industry,” it adds. “Consumers and search engines are both better off when consumers have full transparency about why they are seeing which results on search websites. If the present FTC guidelines on paid placements are being widely flouted, or if certain industry segments – such as vertical search sites – harbor particular practices that mislead consumers, result in fraud, or offer unfair competitive advantage to their commercial customers, the public and the business community deserve to know. And they also deserve to have steps taken to protect them in future.”

Here’s the letter in its entirety:

Google has come out in support of such an industry wide review by the FTC. In July, a Google spokesperson told WebProNews, “Consumers benefit from clear labeling in search results, and we have always clearly disclosed which links are paid advertisements. That said, not all search engines clearly disclose paid results, so we would support a fresh look by the FTC at search labeling and transparency practices.”

We also asked other companies like Microsoft, Orbitz and Expedia whether they would support such a review. None of them would comment at the time.

Google, of course, is facing another kind of scrutiny by the FTC. Recent reports indicate that the Commission will come to a final decision on whether or not to pursue a suit against Google by mid November or December, with a reported four out of five Commissioners supporting a suit. Meanwhile, at least one congressman has written to the FTC saying that even discussing antitrust when it comes to Google “defies all logic”.

Are you spending more or less on SEO than you were a year ago? Let us know in the comments.

The organization has put out a 72-page report, published by Econsultancy, looking at a survey of nearly 900 companies and agencies.

“Overall, the report depicts a stable industry, without dramatic changes,” says SEMPO. “Although the practices of search engine and digital marketing may have changed significantly as new tools, algorithms and platforms have come into play, the survey depicts very much the same goals in place.”

Survey respondents have increased their SEO budgets, and only 2% of them indicated that they spent nothing on SEO at all.

The amount of agency billing for SEO services is on the rise. “A significant drop in those
spending less than $100k corresponds to higher number across the board, with the greatest increase
in the $1 to $5 million range,” SEMPO says.

The survey found that, while it remains a key goal for SEO, SEMPO says, “Survey responses show a drop in the blunt objective of driving traffic.” Meanwhile, the number of agencies citing brand/reputation as a goal, doubled year-over-year.

On the paid side of things, agencies evaluating their clients’ goals for paid search noted a significant rise in seeing brand/reputation as their top objective, SEMPO notes.

One thing is clear: the search marketing industry is only increasing in value, despite the rise of social media, and Google algorithm updates forcing sites to become less dependent on Google:

“Changes to the Google algorithm affected a large percentage of marketers, or at least has them concerned,” SEMPO notes in the report. “87% call the updates of the last 12-18 months ‘significant or highly significant.’ In most cases marketers feel the overall effect to be positive, but success in combating SEO spam sites has come at the expense of many legitimate brands.”

On Friday, there were rumblings about the possibility of a new major Panda update, but at the time of this writing, they have yet to be confirmed. A big Penguin refresh is also expected.

If those Google updates are keeping you up at night, you may want to revisit what Google itself says about SEO, particularly when looking to hire someone.

“Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation,” Google says. “Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site.”

Google adds that, “Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners,” such as:

• Review of your site content or structure
• Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
• Content development
• Management of online business development campaigns
• Keyword research
• SEO training
• Expertise in specific markets and geographies.

“Before beginning your search for an SEO, it’s a great idea to become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work,” Google says, suggesting its Webmaster Guidelines and Google 101: How Google crawls, indexes and serves the web as starting points.

Google also suggests hiring an SEO early in the site development process, like when you’re planning a redesign or planning to launch a new site altogether (many no doubt are, thanks to Panda and Penguin). In case you’re not familiar with it, Google has a list of questions that it says you should ask an SEO during the hiring process:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
• Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
• What’s your experience in my industry?
• What’s your experience in my country/city?
• What’s your experience developing international sites?
• What are your most important SEO techniques?
• How long have you been in business?
• How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

“While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways,” Google says.

The company advises site owners to “be wary” of SEO firms and consultants or agencies that send you an email out of the blue, noting that even Google gets these emails. Google also reminds you that nobody can can guarantee you a #1 ranking. Google says to be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do, and makes it clear that, “You should never have to link to an SEO.”

And just in case you needed another list of things to steer clear of, Google says to “feel free to walk away” of the SEO:

• owns shadow domains
• puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
• offers to sell keywords in the address bar
• doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
• guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
• operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
• gets traffic from “fake” search engines, spyware, or scumware
• has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google

Despite all of this advice, Google is making it harder and harder to get on the first page of results for reasons even beyond the algorithm updates. Google is showing less organic results for an increasing number of queries, and showing more direct answers whenever it can provide them.

Is increasing the SEO budget the right response? Let us know what you think.

According to SEMPO President Chris Boggs, the organization, which is made up of thousands of marketing professionals across 50 countries, wrote the letter in response to its members’ concerns. SEMPO felt it needed to voice these concerns and explain why its members want an “open, free channel of communication.”

Are you concerned that the government will change the Internet as we know it? Let us know your thoughts.

“Overall, the reason that we felt we needed to send this letter was because we were concerned specifically that the U.S. government is investigating the search operations of Google,” said Boggs.

“It’s not just because we felt we needed to go thank our sponsor, Google,” he added.

The letter calls for a free market approach to the Internet with little or no regulation. It focuses on Google, however, in light of the anticompetitive claims that ShopCity and others have made lately.

Although Boggs does not discredit ShopCity’s claims, he pointed that all businesses are subject to the same rules for both organic search and paid search. In addition, he believes the accusations would have a greater impact if the Google naysayers outnumbered the Google advocates. However, judging from SEMPO’s members, they do not.

“I would want to see a much larger sample of companies saying that it’s unfair, versus the large sample that I’ve seen that have spoken to us and messaged to the board of SEMPO their pro-support of Google and the way they do handle business,” said Boggs.

The letter makes clear that search engines were not intended to be regulated or subject to control from governments or commercial entities, saying:

Search is not a government-run utility, established by law and thus subject to bureaucratic oversight. It is a service provided to consumers and businesses by companies, which have set up their operations using their own principles, proprietary technologies and algorithms. Each company is free to develop its own approach, fulfilling the needs of its customers as it perceives them.”

It makes the case that a free market methodology is what made the Internet what it is today. As Boggs explained, this freedom has allowed the Internet to grow and produce platforms such as social networks.

“If we hadn’t allowed the growth of Facebook and Twitter, and even some of its forbearers like MySpace, we would be nowhere close to where we are now in terms of the ability to communicate and reconnect with old friends on the Internet, for example, and also to perform business,” he said.

In order to further this free market innovation, the SEMPO letter stated that the following 4 requirements were needed:

1. Willingness of legislative and regulatory government entities worldwide to allow the evolution of the Internet in as unfettered a regulatory environment as possible

2. Willingness of publishers and information owners to explore ways of sharing their valuable information with the search engines while not jeopardizing their revenue models

3. Consumers feeling a level of trust with search engines sufficient to allow the search engines to personalize results for them, maintaining privacy settings at a level comfortable to them

4. Understanding by marketers and advertisers that the search engines’ most valuable asset is the user, and therefore the search engines will often place the consumer experience above short-term financial gain

Although SEMPO has not received a response from the FTC, Boggs said that the organization was willing to work with it to help it further understand how the search industry works.

In terms of regulation, Boggs told us that he didn’t see any coming in 2012 but that he could see it happening in 2015 or 2016. If it does happen, Boggs said he hopes that it protects the innocent from potentially harmful content online instead of preventing a free Internet.

Holoubek tell us that they had a record number of respondents this year. "Almost 1,500 people from across the globe in 68 countries answered the survey, she says.

The report estimates that the North American search engine marketing industry will grow 14% from $14.6 billion in 2009 to $16.6 billion by the end of 2010.

The report also indicates that measuring ROI is the biggest challenge facing marketers this year in all three key search tactics covered in the survey – SEO, paid search, and social media marketing. Additional findings include:

- Around half the companies (49%) are reallocating budgets to search engine marketing from print advertising. More than a third (36%) are shifting money away from direct mail, and almost a quarter are moving budgets from conferences and exhibitions (24%) and web display advertising (23%).

- The research highlights Google’s dominance as a search engine, with 97% of companies paying to advertise on Google AdWords. Nearly three quarters of companies (71%) pay to advertise on the Google search network while 56% use the Google content network (keyword targeted).

- More than half of advertisers (56%) and agencies (62%) say that Google keywords have become more expensive over the last year. Meanwhile, only around a third of advertisers noted an increase in Yahoo (32%) and Bing (29%) keyword costs.

- From a range of trends and marketplace developments, company respondents are most likely to say the personalization of search results is having an impact. Just under a third of companies (31%) say this is "highly significant," and a further 44% say it is "significant." Agency respondents felt the "rise of local search" was the most significant emerging trend with 38% saying this was "highly significant" with 47% labeling it as “significant."

SEMPOs findings suggest tha the rise of social media budgets, while still modest in comparison to EO and paid search, represent the "biggest opportunity" for search marketers in 2010.

Retargeting is basically when you market your product from a different angle or to a different market altogether. There’s a good explanation of it at answers.com: Marketing efforts to spur demand for a product that is experiencing declining demand by marketing it as though it were a new product.

Almost half (46.3%) of respondents said that remarketing (also known as retargeting) is the online marketing technology they feel is most under-utilized. Other technologies respondents feel are under utilized include:

- Geo-targeting – 18.3%
- Traffic source optimization – 15.9%
- Keyword targeting – 13.4%
- Other – 3.7%
- Category targeting – 2.4%

69.5% said they have never utilized display remarketing in their online advertising. Only 30.5% said that they had or do. Out of the ones that have, most (53.1%) said that display remarketing made their advertising more impactful.

"As online advertising continues to grow, newer technologies are recognized and evaluated against the more traditional approaches," said Daniel Yomtobian, founder and CEO of Advertise.com. "We’re interested in taking a closer look at why Remarketing is underutilized. We know that retargeting can boost ad response up to 400 percent so it’s definitely something online advertisers need to stay informed about and use more strategically."

"As the industry matures, SEMPO recognizes that new technologies and tactics, such as retargeting, will become increasingly important to the search marketer," said SEMPO President Sara Holoubek. "We look forward to a fruitful industry discussion on how search and Remarketing can best be married for maximum ROI."

81.7% of participants said they implement local search advertising campaigns and that the following forms of online advertising provide the best ROI:

- Search – 70.7%
- Cost-per-action (CPA) – 14.6%
- Email – 6.1%
- Social – 3.7%
- Other – 2.4%

52.4% utilize CPA to drive sales leads, 13.4% use it to drive traffic, 6.1% use it to drive brand awareness, and 26.8% do not utilize CPA at all. (1.2% said "other").

Related Articles:

> If You Care About Search, You Must Care About Social Media

> Google and Heineken Study Search for Branding

> Email Marketing Driving Purchases

The event is pretty heavily weighted toward SEM and I asked what turned out, to those in attendance, to be a bit of a dopey question. I asked "How many here are interested purely in SEM?" then when only a couple of hands were raised, I was encouraged to think it may be more of an SEO crowd, so I asked "How many are interested purely in SEO?" and saw only another sprinkling of raised hands.

So, based on one of my previous experiences at a major company where the team was half SEM and half SEO, and my current position, which is entirely SEO team with no SEM – I assumed a similar situation would be true of most in-house teams at substantially sized companies.

My assumption was apparently skewed. It seems that most do double-duty on in-house teams. When I asked "What’s the balance here?" a few people said, (a few with emotion) "Both!"

That surprised me, based on what I knew before asking that question. But now I know that, at least among the crowd attending Search Insider Summit, that the oft joined SEM/SEO label applies to most. Well I suppose that was a gaff then, but…

Later in the day, I overheard a conversation on a shuttle bus which makes me wonder if SEO is being best served by in-house SEM/SEO’s. After two strangers from the conference exchanged greetings & pleasantries, the inevitable "What do you do?" came up from one.

The answer, "SEM and I’ve been tasked with learning SEO for our team." (emphasis mine) Then the response from an ill-informed questioner was short-sighted and probably simplistic thinking from those who THINK they understand SEO – "So you’re learning about meta tags and H1′s?"

I’d like to argue that the two disciplines should be divided and I’d wager that many SEM’s who love what they do will agree. The skill-set is completely different. Both SEM’s and SEO’s deal with keywords, and target search engine results pages, but that is where the similarity ends.

Having recently worked day-to-day with an SEM team in-house and being separated only by a cubicle wall for 18 months. I recall the SEO team only dealing with the SEM team during our bi-weekly online marketing group meetings.

So if someone who loves SEM is "tasked with learning SEO," (like that overheard conversation I mentioned above) they are not likely to understand or fully invest themselves in truly learning an important aspect of the Search Marketing business. They’ll learn a couple of things and not all aspects of the work. They’ll continue to do a great job of SEM and start doing a poor job of SEO.

I’ll also argue that if that role is reversed and an SEO is "tasked with learning SEM for the team" then they will learn a few things, but not all of the elements of good SEM and not do a complete and thorough job of SEM but will continue to do a good job of SEO.

I recall a couple of job interviews about 5 years ago where in both cases, I was talking with an SEM manager who had convinced their boss that they needed a full-time SEO on staff to handle things they weren’t able to continue doing as the company grew. Rather than evenly split SEM and SEO tasks among two staffers, they were dividing the two. That’s the smart way to go.

I didn’t take either of those jobs, and I’m quite happy about that now. I also walked away from a job that would have required me to significantly sharpen my SEM skills so that I could handle both. I didn’t doubt that I could do it, but love SEO and very likely wouldn’t have done as well with the SEM piece.

So I’d like to ask the question of those SEM/SEO dual purpose people – are you doing both because you love both or are you doing both because you were "tasked to learn" one of those pieces because your company won’t increase the budget enough for a new head on the payroll? Would you rather focus on one or continue doing both?

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There are many options for companies and agencies to train digital marketing teams and to keep tenured employees up to date including conferences such as: this week’s WebmasterWorld Pubcon, Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, numerous regional and niche events and an increasing number of web based offerings including SEMPO Institute and the DMA Search Engine Marketing Certification program. I would be remiss not to mention the upcoming "Social Media Smarts" workshop in NYC covering all aspects of social media marketing including a strategy exercise and tips on building a business case for a social media effort in your organization.

Attending conferences is not cheap when you factor the increasing price of travel and hotels as well as pre/post and conference training fees, meals and taxi. Attendees and their companies are paying $2500 – $5000 per person per conference as well as the cost of time away from the office performing billable work. It’s easy to see why webinars are on the increase and why those who are fortunate to attend these events need to get the most out of them.

The most important thing that conference attendees can do to get the most out of their time at events is to set goals. Managers sending individuals to conferences should be clear about expectations. Company staff should be sure to talk with others within the organization or team that have attended the same or similar events to gain their insight.

Depending on the purpose for attending a conference, goals may vary. Here are some common goals based on the various reasons for attending any kind of marketing conference:

• Knowledge - How many sessions will you attend and how will you capture the information? Notes, photos, video (where allowed) When meeting new people, discuss the sessions with them. Compare notes with other attendees, it’s a great way to network and to get other opinions. Before the conference, make a grid or a plan for which specific sessions you’ll be attending. Often times, there is not much time between sessions and the difference between getting a good seat and standing room only can be a matter of minutes.

• Networking - How many qualified prospects, marketing partners, vendors to outsource to and job candidates will you meeting? Each day, tally them up and plan how you will follow up.

• Content - how will you leverage your conference experience to create new content for your company blog, articles, or process documentation? Set goals for how many you’ll create each day. The content you capture and create can supply a company blog with numerous posts and show clients, staff and prospective clients that you are on top of what’s happening in the industry. At TopRank, our staff are required to publish at least 3 blog posts for each day of conference attended. Set goals for how many blog posts, articles or other types of content will be created each day of the conference. It doesn’t have to be all text, you can take photos of people, and presentation slides. Take videos where allowed.

• Knowledge transfer - How will you pass on the information youâ’ve acquired to the rest of the team? At TopRank Online Marketing, our staff take the highlights and any specific tactics of use and create presentations which they share with the rest of the TopRank team. Knowing you will be required to present the information you are gaining with the team back at the office helps focus on takeaways and practical interpretations of the new information.

• Socialize – Where there’s a conference, there’s a party. After hours events are exceptional opportunities for conference attendees to relax, network and share information. Make no mistake, post session networking can be an art form. Make a point to relax and have fun, but be clear about objectives and make a goal of attending a dinner each night of the event if possible. Some dinners are a tradition amongst long time friends, some are sponsored by vendors and some are at hoc events that occur as a result of like minded individuals wanting to continue the day’s discussion.

As you can see, there are many more opportunities to get value from marketing conference participation than keeping up to date with an industry. Pre conference goal setting and planning, well defined processes as well as follow up and post event knowledge sharing can all multiple the value organizations realize by sending employees to educational events.

Not all organizations are positioned to take full advantage of these insights, but through simple analysis, it can become clear pretty quickly how much is being left on the table or to competitors who are sending the same numbers of people and incurring the same costs.

Understand the conference offerings, set goals and make the time to pre-plan conference involvement. Leverage content creation, networking, recruiting, competitive intelligence as well as prospecting opportunities and industry conferences can move pretty quickly from an expense with an uncertain effect to an investment with multiples of return.

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SEMPO began teaching online courses in search marketing in January 2007. after opening with a course on SEM fundamentals, SEMPO added advanced classes to the mix.

“The Institute certification process will provide interactive agencies that participate in our program with a means of showing they are up to speed on current SEM strategy,” SEMPO Chairman Dana Todd said in a statement.

Agencies will qualify for certification after at least 20 percent of the staff completes at least one course through the SEMPO Institute, with a 75 percent passing grade or better. SEMPO said there will be two levels of certification, based on the percentage of staffers completing courses.

“In doing market research and talking to agencies we found a real desire to have an ‘instant differentiator,’ a seal of excellence that would help an agency distinguish itself against the competition by showing that a significant number of its employees are highly trained and skilled in search engine marketing,” Katie Donovan, SEMPO Institute Business Development Manager, said.

“Agencies told us they liked the idea of certification, given the strong reputation the Institute and SEMPO as a whole have in the marketplace.”

We see a greater need for search marketing now that universal search figures more prominently with the major search engines. Since one can no longer rely on a list of ten blue links being the only options coming up in search results, advertisers will want to know their agency has the acumen to deal with this new search environment.

The biggest problem with SEO standards is we’ll get some half baked, half assed, implementation that’s just as bad as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). As a concept it’s seems like a wonderful idea, everyone agrees to a set of established teachings and has to meet a minimum set of standards. Should enable customers to do apples to apples comparisons and eliminate con artists and shiesters, right? Wrong my naive and misguided friends, what we end up with is a big fat goopy mess.

One of the problems with NCLB is teachers have a very small amount of time they are allowed to use to explore off curriculum material. If an SEO wants to retain certification do you think they’ll be encouraged to try new things or contemplate outside of the four sided parallelogram?

Did you know that part of NCLB requires the name and address of every student be sent to the US Government who passes it along to the military recruiting offices? Do you think it’s a stretch to imagine registration of name, address, email, and websites will required to be shared with all the search engines?

Do you think that NCLB fosters an atmosphere of exceptional teachers teaching to students who want to grow and learn? Or do you think it encourages “teaching for the test” and students who learn to sit in their place and adhere to the lowest common denominator thinking? Do you think SEO standards are about creating superstars who challenge and force the industry to grow? Or do you think it’s about handicapping everyone and striving for a level playing field where third rate hacks get to play with the big dogs?

Who do you think is going to set these standards? Heck SEMPO hasn’t done a damn thing for me, and I have a hard time finding anything meaningful they’ve done to educate the outside world about search. Don’t believe me? Take an informal survey of your clients and ask how many have heard of SEMPO, I’d be shocked to learn you had to use your second hand to count them.

Have you ever been part of large committee? Do the words innovative and leadership leap to mind, or does your head fill with nightmares of bureaucratic red tape, internal politics, and watered down compromises?

Do I think we need some form of certification to prove that you are an SEO, sure. Every client should say show me something more competitive than [fuzzy pink sock puppets in Los Angeles] that you rank for. Yes I believe that every consulting agency should have their own in house sites to show clients, for R&D, testing, and experimentation. I also think everyone should prove they can get a website banned every few years. If you’re a race car driver and you don’t smack into the wall or another car now and again, you aren’t pushing yourself and your machinery, all you’re doing is playing it safe.

Don’t get in line and support industry standards …

Don’t get in line and support mediocrity …

Don’t volunteer to go on the leash and accept “the man” as your master …

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You can read the reviews of SEMPO Institute’s “Insider’s Guide to Search Marketing” formerly known as the “Fundamentals of Search Marketing” and the Advanced SEO Course Review by TopRank’s Dana Larson.

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