• by Shankar Gupta , September 29, 2005

For search marketing to be effective, marketers must integrate efforts to optimize their sites for crawlers with cost-per-click campaigns, panelists said Wednesday at OMMA East.

But for many marketers, optimization remains a lower priority than paid search, said panel moderator Gord Hotchkiss, CEO of search engine marketing firm Enquiro. "Search marketing can be done as a stand-alone strategy," said Hotchkiss, referring to paid campaigns. "But we don't recommend that," he added.

One reason for lag is that many companies view optimization as a nebulous expenditure that leaves them unsure of what they're getting, said panelist Alan Boughen, direct of search operations for mOne. "A lot of people still see SEO as sort of 'black magic,'" he said.

Additionally, companies that want to use optimization to drive traffic to their sites often face internal barriers. Panelist Rob Murray, CEO of iProspect, an SEM/SEO firm, said that often, companies' marketing and information technology departments aren't coordinated enough to get the job done. "Sometimes you'll get brought in by the marketing folks and they won't even consult the IT department," he said. "It comes down to organizational commitment."

Also on the panel were Chris Copeland, managing director of Outrider, and Jeremy Cornfeldt, vice president of search and affiliate marketing for Carat Fusion.