Matt Naeger, VP And General Counsel, IMPAQT
Matt Naeger graduated from Duquesne University Law School and applied his legal training and expertise to the search industry in a multitude of ways-specifically as they relate to online client branding, as well as trademark and copyright issues. He spent six years managing large-scale direct marketing analysis projects for Fortune 500 clients before the start-up of IMPAQT in 1999. Naeger is also recognized as a true “thought leader” in search, frequently speaking at leading industry events and summits, as well as being considered a go-to source for search analysts and media.
IMPAQT was founded in 1999. The company redefined search marketing and stays at the forefront of the industry with a combination of innovation, strategy, expert staff, and analytics. IMPAQT’s offerings include search engine optimization services, paid-search management, search education services, agency partnerships, search analytics, strategic consulting, customized reporting, and online/offline data integration. The company currently services Fortune 1000 corporations with data intensive search marketing needs in the B2B, finance, insurance, pharmaceutical, retail, and travel industries.
Jerri: What do you see as the current state of SEO?
Naeger: During 2002 and 2003, people were starting to back away from SEO, but over the last 18-24 months, there has been a much more prevalent view of optimization. SEO has once again become the in-vogue tactic for marketing.
People are also starting to look at how organic optimization works with paid-search marketing strategies. In the beginning there was a more siloed [compartmentalized] approach to search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Many organizations saw it as two different programs, and it was either one or the other. But now people are beginning to realize they have to do both together. When both are implemented, we have seen that they support each other, and each becomes significantly more successful than when they operate independently.
Jerri: How does SEO fit into overall search marketing?
Naeger: To begin with, users still don’t necessarily understand that a sponsored link is paid for. Even a lot of marketers don’t understand. We find that many organizations are doing either one or the other, but they don’t do both. The way that it should be is that SEO should be a core component of any online marketing strategy. The opportunity to capture a very large audience at what is comparatively a small cost is something that should never be overlooked by a marketer in today’s world. SEO should also be utilized as a means of growing the depth of understanding of what users are wanting from your site and your company. By optimizing your web site to appear within organic search results, you can then evaluate the relevant terms associated with your site for potential purchases in engines where your placement may be lacking. As you evolve your online marketing strategies, SEO and SEM should both be looked at not only as a way to capture customers, but also as a way to understand them and in extension a way to understand the effects. of your total brand marketing efforts.
Jerri: What are organizations not doing that would improve their SEO if they did do it?
Naeger: Organizations are not educating people internally enough to allow them to understand what effect SEO and SEM can have on the marketing of their brand. This education should be done across the entire organization and not just within the marketing group that is responsible for the effort. To implement SEO effectively and successfully, multiple departments and third-party agencies must be involved, educated, and completely aligned.
They should educate the content team that, “this is why the content should be done a different way,” and show them how content can affect SEO.
They should educate the public relations department that a press release is not just a single docu- ment. It should be linked to the corresponding page on your web site.
Organizations should also look at SEO and SEM in order to build a web site that doesn’t have to have changes made to it to keep up with any marketing changes that are made. That’s where con- tent management systems can help to integrate content into the site in a way that’s relevant. They should build the site within the content management system, so that it can automatically integrate that press release or piece of content into the site in a quick and efficient manner.
One more thing is that people are turning a blind eye to other types of media. Search is a channel that is dramatically affected by both online and offline marketing. Companies should consider their overall media mix, and measure the results of that media by both online and offline effects.
Something that some organizations don’t understand is that just because you’re placing an ad on a search engine doesn’t mean that ad has to be a click-to-sale effort. It’s also a method that use to look at the data provided through search. The data collected during search can help uncover what the intent of the customer was, based on how they search and what they searched for. This is where the industry will turn next: complex data analysis and leveraging all of its intellectual value across all ad media.
Finally, a third capability that search marketing gives you is the ability to see how your competitors’ advertising, both online and offline, can drive the awareness of the category and therefore may affect your marketing efforts as well. As you enhance the sophistication of the way you utilize online and offline tracking data, you will be able to react to and take advantage of the efforts of your competitors in ways that have not been possible in the past. As an example, using your search marketing results, you can learn what specific feature interests consumers developed out of a new product launch, and using this information you can gain insight into the consumer mindset that can then be utilized to build how you market your product in the future.
Jerri: What about social media marketing, how will it change SEO?
Naeger: Social media marketing helps you to build brand advocacy and lets you learn how consumers feel about your marketing efforts.
We will continue to see some big numbers on the growth of social media marketing until it reaches a maturity level. But it’s not mature yet, and more and more people are finding it’s useful. Social media change the way in which people find information. They don’t want to spend as much time searching anymore. Social media give consumers the ability to find the information that they need based on recommendations from their friends and colleagues as opposed to the message that the marketer is trying to send to them through their advertising.
The big question in the industry is, how can social media marketing affect search engine results pages? Until recently, social media haven’t shown up in search engine results, but now we’re starting to see more and more social media sites showing up under general research-based search terms. This is the reason that the search engine marketing industry began to take notice of social media.
The next evolution of the question right now is, “How can we as search marketers understand and influence what is driving the inclusion of these results with the search landscape?” Marketers want to understand how pages are showing up on their brand and what those pages are saying about them. A good example of a site that is driving a lot of search visibility for brands is Wikipedia. Wikipedia consistently ranks well in Google searches, and in particular for those searches relative to brand infor- mation. So marketers are trying to figure out how to use social media to rank well, and how to con- trol social media search results algorithmically in order to help control the view of the brand that a searcher is presented with inside of organic search results.
Jerri: How long will it be before we see this algorithmic control and ranking of the influences that social media have on web sites?
Naeger: We probably won’t ever see ultimate control, but I think within the next six to eight months people will find a way to influence search results with social media. There’s also a lot more talk about vertical search, and even in social media marketing I think the search world will become more verticalized.
Verticalized search is where people are finding other places they want to search. I think the next evolution of search is of a person telling a search engine how, where, and what to be told and then utilizing the engine to deliver on that request. What this means is that people are starting to utilize different search engines for different types of content, and in the future this will also extend to using different search engines for different categories of information as well.
The next 15 to 18 months will be critical in growing a more qualified audience in vertical search. If you tell users to tell you what they want you to tell them, they will. Especially as it applies to organic SEO, consumers are saying they want information that’s not necessarily of the brand yet is specific to a particular type of content area or format. If vertical engines can deliver on this request in a fashion that is easy to use, then they will have the advantage over the personalized search fea- tures of the major search engines.
Jerri: Is there anything else that I haven’t touched on that you think is important?
Naeger: The big thing is that the data and learning that you derive from what people do inside a search engine has an effect that we can’t even fathom yet. There are ways to look at, track, and understand that data that are still in development. And when we figure out how to do that, we’ll have the ability to provide users the information they need through not only customized search programs, but also through the customization of all marketing efforts.
There’s an adage used in the search space that goes, “He who has the most data wins.” But that’s only effective if you can look at the data, understand what it is telling you, and apply that under- standing to your campaign. And I think that’s where improvements for the future need to, and will be, focused.
