n today’s ultra-competitive and digital-first world, every business has one far-reaching goal; to succeed with digital marketing. Search engine marketing is one of the most critical areas of online promotion because it increases your visibility in search engine results pages and can result in sustainable growth.
Search engine optimisation is an area of SEM that many businesses struggle with, and there are plenty of “SEO experts” willing to offer their services at bargain prices.
Here’s the thing, though—the only thing many of these so-called “experts” excel at is deceiving their clients. From bulk content creation to black-hat tactics and everything in between, finding a reputable SEM specialist can feel like an uphill battle.
ACE is an SEO agency with over a decade of experience. We’ve seen it all and are about to reveal what you need to know about finding an SEM specialist.
We’ll cover the red flags, things to consider, and a whole lot more. So, let’s get straight to it.
Short on time? Here are the key takeaways
- Search engine marketing is an umbrella term for practices like SEO and PPC that contribute to your search engine rankings.
- While PPC offers instant results, SEO is a long-term solution that can boost your ROI by more than 2000%.
- Working with a disreputable SEM company can lead to severe repercussions for your business—but there are ways to spot these agencies.
What is Search Engine Marketing?
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is essential to any digital marketing strategy. Marketers use it to boost a website’s online presence and ensure it appears on the SERPS (search engine results pages.)
It typically involves a combination of search engine optimisation (SEO) and Pay-per-click (PPC) to drive forward results and ensure websites can stake their place on search engines such as Google and Bing.
While the main component of SEM today is PPC, search engine optimisation still falls under the search engine marketing umbrella, as it’s crucial for developing a website’s organic presence.
To put it in simple terms, PPC offers short-term gains, and SEO is a long-term strategy that provides ongoing results.
Why is SEM important?
Search engine marketing is most effective when it combines SEO and PPC to cover a website’s immediate and long-term needs. It might seem like a headache, but the results can far outweigh the investment you put into SEM.
Most online users will research a product or service online
According to Business Insider, just under 40% of e-commerce traffic comes from search engines, with 4% from PPC and 35% through organic search. A further 35% of e-commerce traffic comes from customers going directly onto the retailer’s website, and 20% is from referrals.
PPC is expensive – but highly effective
YPPC campaigns are highly effective, but they also cost money. The amount you pay per click depends on numerous factors, including how competitive your industry is and where you want your ads to appear on the SERP.
Small to medium businesses in the USA spend around £9,000 to $10,000 on advertising, but Google Ads has an average ROI of 200% (Small Biz Genius). Some campaigns can see an ROI of up to 800%, so pay-per-click is a viable solution for immediate results.
SEO can cut your costs
SEO is an ongoing process, but it can often be the more cost-effective solution.
The cost for a monthly SEO retainer usually falls between £1,105 and above, with the costs of SEO depending on the size of your business and whether you’re focusing on local, national or international campaigns.
However, SEO can result in long-term gains and huge returns on investments. A recent study revealed that SEO marketing boasts an ROI of 2,200% (FutureLearn).
How to Identify a Search Engine Marketing Specialist
So, now you know why search engine marketing specialists are essential to your digital strategy; it’s time to reveal how to find the right consultant or agency for your needs.
As PPC campaigns produce immediate results, it’s easy to determine whether a particular service is reputable. SEO is an ongoing process, and noticeable results take months to show.
The following skills demonstrate that someone has expert SEM knowledge.
SEM knowledge and experience
It goes without saying that any search engine marketing specialist needs to have a great deal of knowledge surrounding paid search campaigns and search engine optimisation.
Experts must have a strong understanding of how SEO works to strategise and deliver effective search engine marketing campaigns.
Topical authority
Search engines use various algorithms to determine where to rank a website, and topical authority is one of the defining factors.
SEM specialists build topical authority by linking to other websites, building backlinks and creating content that offers value and expertise to readers.
Content creation
Content creation is one of the most valuable ways to connect with an audience and build your website’s topical authority.
The days of keyword stuffing are long gone, and websites now need to show a degree of expertise on their chosen topic.
SEO experts know how to create content for specific demographics and ensure it meets all of Google’s EAT guidelines.
Link building
Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to your website, which tells search engines that other people value your content. When you get links from authoritative websites, it can help you rank higher in search results.
However, link building is one of the most complex areas of SEO, and Social Media Today reports that 41% of professionals find it challenging.
An expert with specialist knowledge of link building can provide better results for clients because they utilise a range of strategies.
Keyword research
Keyword research is central to effective SEO and PPC, enabling marketers to target the keywords people use to search for products and services.
However, keyword research can only be effective if you use the relevant terms for searcher intent.
Identifying the best keywords and implementing them for both SEO and PPC requires a lot of time and effort, as keyword research is central to driving SEM campaigns forward.
Decision-making skills
SEO has never been – nor will be – a stable and consistent field. Every time search engines change their algorithms, ranking factors also vary. The best search engine optimisation professionals stay up to date with all of these changes and are ready to act on them.
Whether that’s changing the entire SEO strategy or adjusting budgets, the ability to make these decisions quickly and effectively can make or break a campaign.
How to Spot an Imposter
Yes, SEO imposters exist, and it’s not always easy to spot them. After all, they don’t wear big signs on their foreheads or have a menacing look. Instead, these so-called experts blend in with the rest of us and seem to offer a reputable service.
Unfortunately, beneath that friendly and helpful exterior lies an agency/individual with limited skills and some tricks up their sleeves that could become very costly.
Here are the main things to watch out for when checking out SEO services.
The big promise
You spend money on SEO to get results – but there are never any concrete guarantees. You can always spot an imposter by the promises they make. For example, if you notice ad campaigns with big promises like “First place results guaranteed”, that’s when you need to walk away.
Every successful SEM specialist knows that search marketing can deliver immediate results only through developing and managing paid search campaigns.
SEO is highly effective but takes time, and numerous factors decide where a website ranks. So, if it seems too good to be true, it definitely is.
Poor link-building practices
Link building is central to effective SEO, but it’s also one of the key areas for imposters to take advantage of you. All the backlinks your website secures should be relevant to your brand and come from authoritative domains.
Unfortunately, building high-quality links takes time and effort, so some people cut corners.
Also known as black hat link building, the following practices can lead to serious repercussions from search engines:
Buying links
Paying other websites for cheap links often means they’re irrelevant to a brand and appear on low-domain websites. These links have zero positive impact on your SEM strategy and instead can lead to decreased domain and topical authority.
Link farms and link networks
Link farms are websites created solely for the purpose of hosting links to other websites. These sites all link to one another to dupe Google into thinking they’re popular. While link farms seem convenient, they often result in lower rankings due to penalties imposed by Google.
Automated link-building
Using software or bots to generate a large number of links is also known as automated link building. These links often come from low-quality and spammy websites, and you have no control over the process. As the European Business Review points out, manual link-building is more effective.
Hidden or invisible links
It’s shocking that this practice still exists, but some SEO agencies still use hidden links. These links usually appear invisible on pages—but search engine crawlers can still detect them.
As you can imagine, the deceptive nature of these links can destroy a website’s reputation and make it near impossible to recover afterwards.
Promising quantity
Great content is central to getting more website traffic and winning with online marketing. Previous practices focused more on quantity than quality, but that shouldn’t be the case.
Google introduced algorithm changes to ensure content quality was a defining ranking factor, and the latest guidelines include helpful content.
Services that utilise reputable SEO techniques know that one detailed blog post with tons of helpful content is more effective than multiple posts with limited information.
So, if an agency guarantees plenty of content but there’s no real quality, then you’ll know it’s time to move on.
Misuse of AI
Artificial intelligence is one of the most exciting developments in the marketing world, and it can streamline many aspects of search engine marketing activities.
Many SEM experts find success managing PPC campaigns by utilising various AI solutions, and it can play a part in simplifying content creation.
However, AI tools for content writing learn from pre-existing content and use that information to write your content.
An SEO and marketing team can optimise content creation and generate content that meets search queries and boosts organic traffic. However, they won’t be able to build topical authority because AI cannot form opinions and think on a human level.
If an SEM specialist relies solely on AI for all aspects of content creation, the website will lack authority and have no real growth potential.
REF originality.ai article and my ebook
Asking for complete control of website analytics tools
Web analytics play a vital role in measuring your SEM efforts and helping specialists isolate areas for improvement. All reputable SEO service providers will request access to your Google Analytics account and other tools to track and measure various metrics.
However, some agencies might ask for complete access or offer to set up your account. When this happens, the agency controls your data instead of you having full ownership of it.
If you decide to part ways with the agency, they might refuse to give you the login details to your accounts which means you’re effectively being held hostage.
Although this problem is rare, it’s a good idea to watch out for it.
Have You Got a Minute?
I hope you enjoyed this article! If you liked it, and can afford to buy me a coffee, that would go along way to allowing me to continue creating more high-value articles like this!
Catch you in the next one! G
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