Paid Search, Natural Search, Local Search, Comparison Shopping, Paid Inclusion solutions - these are the factors that drive search engine marketing or SEM. Why should you care as a business person? Search engines account for about 80% of all website traffic and provides a powerful venue for advertisers to link to targeted, interested and prospective customers. At the top of the SEM ladder sits DoubleClick Performics which has impeccable qualifications, marketing credibility and unmatched, established search engine relationships.

It kind of makes you want to run right over and sign up for search engine optimization help for your website, doesn’t it? You are more than ready to use Performics to improve your search engine ranking utilizing proven-techniques that work with Google’s complex algorithms. Well, before you put that URL in your browser, you might want to know that Google, the biggest, baddest search engine on the planet just bought DoubleClick Performics.

What does that mean? Some say that Google is now in direct competition with other SEM/SEO firms and that the service once known for running effective search-engine advertising campaigns and improving search-engine rankings has just become the competition: Google.

Well, yes and no. While it is true that with the DoubleClick acquisition comes the ability for Google to control yet another facet of the search-engine marketing (SEM) and search-engine optimization (SEO) market, there is a definite upside for business entrepreneurs with this move.

While SEO/SEM firms like Closed Loop marketing finds that competing with Google’s own SEO/SEM agency can prove awkward, it also provides an opportunity for business entrepreneurs and savvy SEM/SEO companies to study the results of Google’s efforts through Performics. What Performics produces can be studied and copied. If they succeed in getting a company into number one ranking for high-competition keywords, it is also possible to study the how and why and come up with a similar webpage optimized the same way.

Software engineers will have extra business in producing software that takes Performics results and turns them into analytics that can be quantified and reproduced.

In the previous seven years Google has increased significantly in popularity with both advertisers and end-users. Marketers have spent a ton of money on getting and keeping high-page rank and search engine results that guarantee traffic. DoubleClick is one of those companies that make sure this is a reality.

Performics has built strong relationships with other search engines besides Google including Yahoo, MSN, Ask, Kanoodle among others. These ties have allowed Performics to move ahead of the pack. Other SEM and SEO firms considered themselves complimentary services to Google and other search engines, but many now feel differently.

While you can look at it either way, some of the benefits are obvious.

On-Page SEO Optimization

Any Performics success, and they will begin to stand out, will be able to be studied including their linking structure, meta titles and descriptions, the anchor text, and optimized content. Keyword optimized articles and posts can then be created with the formula in place.

If what is coming up Number 1 to 5 in search engine results probably being a result of Google’s Performics tie-in, you’ll have a pretty good idea of who to copy just by searching and guessing. Manually, you’ll be able to look at different pages until the patterns begin to jump out of what is always coming up successful. Who better to know what’s going on that Google.

Off-Page Factors

Taking into account backlinking, reciprocal linking and off-site advertising efforts will be another factor. Google is big on backlinks so that’s the first place to start. There is already software on the market to count incoming links for a website. It is just a matter of plugging in the URL of the site in question and working off-site to get the backlink count up to where the search engine winner listing is.

Backlinking can be accomplished in a number of ways from commenting on subjects on other high PR sites, trackbacks, article marketing and the like. If you have a goal in mind, provided by a Performics page result, you’ll know what your doing.

There is major concern in the SEO/SEM industry that Google will offer their Performics service at dramatically reduced rates in order to kill off the competition. This may very well happen, and with it will come the inevitable strain between SEO/SEM firms and the search engine giant.

This will be a wait-and-see factor. If Google does offer reduced SEO rates, it will force other competing firms to drop their rates. This will be good for business entrepreneurs and not so good for SEO firms in the short run. Where they have lost business due to pricing, they will regain through rate reduction.

These are definite clash points. Another would be Google’s incredible credibility level. There will, however, always be a group of businesses who will go with or stick with SEO/SEM firms who have offered discounted pricing, incentives and excellent service.

Customer service is another big factor. Usually when smaller companies are faced with being overrun by larger concerns, what makes or breaks them is their superior customer service. It falls to that old saying: "Customers want to know how much you care before they care how much you know". So, while Google may have credibility, the smaller firms have longevity and quality customer service.

Another often overlooked portion of the marketing arena that is overlooked is social networking. It is one of the biggest revolutions to hit the Internet, and it has changed the way websites get indexed, ranked and positioned. SEO firms have added these to their arsenal and can literally get hundreds of targeted visitors through this method.

It may be that Google decides not to hold on to Performics as it could be viewed as a conflict of interest for the firm. Google’s sales arm is all about selling as much advertising as possible, and it may be that business people shy away from using Performics for their paid advertising because of this. I mean, who are they going to recommend? Marketing firms will be able to capitalize on this factor and if done correctly will view this as an opportunity for expansion of services.

This one thing alone could be viewed as a conflict of interest and while most people’s advertising budget is spent of Google advertising, it is still a clash point. Even though a lot of advertising goes to Google, most people in the free world don’t like the idea of putting all their eggs into one basket. They might feel that they will only be offered the Google option for advertising.

When looking at Google’s acquisition in this light, there are more benefits than detractions for both marketers and SEO/SEM firms alike. While the Google/Performics merger could be troubling, if used correctly, it could be a boon for both search engine optimization firms and independent entrepreneurs alike.

Article By: Randy Zlobec

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