Search, for some has always been a dirty word. Swathed in mystery for a long time with images of wizards in ‘black hat’s’ springing to mind whenever SEO was mentioned. Lots of nerdy types claiming to have the magical fairy dust to get to number one in Google and such like. Then things started to change. Every man and his goat was ‘doing search’ with hundreds of agencies claiming to be the experts. Confusing for the client and a bad user experience all round for those of us in the industry.
Google’s tools in particular mean that literally anyone can do it, but it is now starting to be recognised that, although anyone can do it, in order to really benefit from search’s efficiencies, clients need to take more responsibility for how search is actually working for them, instead of just switching it on and waiting to see what happens.
These days change is still afoot but new trends are emerging in the way people purchase and manage their search marketing. Many of the UK’s biggest online retailers now handle all matters pertaining to search in house, with roles filled by ex agency gurus or mathematical whizz kids who are very good at excel. J There are plenty of reasons for looking after search in house. Often, dissatisfaction with agency service levels, or lack of transparency, but also the realisation that search is an integral part of marketing for any business nowadays, and it needs to be positioned within the overall strategy and understood by all stakeholders in the business.
In the agency world too, things are changing. Search is being given a new value at different ends of the process chain. Design and build agencies are being asked by their clients to work on their search strategy, PR agencies are overwhelmed with requests to manage online PR, and they all need to pull up their socks and get stuck in, and ask for help where they need it from bona-fide search experts if they want to maintain their quality of offering across everything they do.
There isn’t any mystery to search, but it requires a lot of patience, and analysis, and it can be laborious, tedious even and, well, it’s not very glamorous. But, one thing is clear: it’s undergoing a reinvention, which Reform is glad to be a huge part of, where search is at last a big cog in the process for all sized and shaped clients from the first website ideas to their 10 year business plan.
Search has come a long way in its early years as a marketing channel. But it is still immature, and we all need to take responsibility – clients, agents, engines and trade associations – to take the industry to a new level of innovation and efficiency. It’s time for search to grow up. To be reinvented.
We are conducting research into how people use search as a marketing medium. If you would like to take part, please click on the link here: www.reformdigital.com/research
