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Is now the time for
search engine marketing standards? The question comes up
often in search marketing circles. It feels a little
presumptuous to try to set standards. In a way, you're
telling smart marketers they must do search marketing
within a box of specific guidelines.
Every marketer should
have the ability to make search marketing decisions not
based on ethical or moral considerations of using
specific tactics, but on their own business model. If
you're a Super Bowl T-shirt salesman and need to sell a
few million items around the time of the big game, you
may be willing to use riskier tactics. That should be
your choice.
Before we could
hope to have standards, we need a level playing field
for marketers interested in engaging Internet audience
through search engines. In that spirit, I'm in favor of
establishing search engine marketing standards that
would provide guidelines for all marketers, and create
that level field.
1. Define
Common Tactics
The various
methods used for search engine optimization can be
broken down by level of difficulty. Simpler tactics
would include keyword research, ranking reporting,
creating page titles and meta information, and the use
of heading tags or bolded content.
More difficult,
less widespread tactics would include the various ways
to label images and other non-text content, and
"workarounds" for Flash or rich Internet applications.
Known "no-no's"
would need to be addressed as well. Of course many
tactics would likely not make the list due to their
secrecy and infrequent use. However, old-school spamming
tactics such as using white text on white background or
the practice of deceptive IP delivery (cloaking) could
be defined.
This process would
need to be committee-driven, rather than a
community-driven effort, in order to get the first
draft. The community could then be polled for feedback
and to help fill in the missing pieces. Consensus may be
difficult to reach and it would be likely that some
opinions would have to be ignored.
2. Rate
the Tactics
I envision a
"tactical risk consideration" rating added to this
document: levels of risk associated with each tactic.
The particular strategies could then be rated into the
following categories:
-
No risk
-
Little risk
-
Moderate risk
-
High risk
-
Not advisable
Marketers would
need to be made aware that not all tactics are included
in the glossary – and if they aren't, caveat emptor.
Let the buyer beware.
The document must
provide a clear statement: "If a tactic not clearly
defined is presented as a part of the project plan, a
marketing manager should pause to question why, and
decide if that tactic is appropriate."
The reasons not to
list all tactics? In short, to avoid giving away the
recipe for success to search engines and competitors.
Complete inclusion of methodologies would be impossible
to accomplish. Of course this would also be a living,
breathing document. Ratings should be purely
committee-driven and approved by SEMPO, which is the
closest thing to an industry standard group that exists
in search marketing. (Full disclosure: I serve on the
SEMPO Board of Directors.)
3.
Promotion and Awareness
Once created, this
document should be made available to everyone in the
marketing industry. It could be published on a unique
domain or on an established industry platform such as
the SEMPO site.
The format of the
document could be wiki-style with limited editing
access. The document caretakers should also monitor its
"reputation" within industry blogs and forums. The
standards would not be "set and forget." Updates may
need to be recommended quarterly
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