*Jozzua Notes from a Business and Marketing Strategist/Tactician

“SEO Doesn’t Work” – Philippine Tech Company

I nearly fell off my seat when Gwen, a good friend, emailed me this message from someone who apparently is from a local tech company:

SEO's are costs that do not, for the moment, give any form of worthy results. Our experience in e-commerce with myAyala for the past 8 years has indicated that the cost of SEO is better spent on an offline campaign. i.e. print add or TVC about the website or an offline promotion requiring an online fullfilment.

The best way to get good search engine results is to simply build consistent and loyal "visits" to your site. In the Philippine context, an offline campaign is necessary.

My first reaction to this was this:

It is pretty pointless to convince someone who has already made up their mind over an issue. Time would be best spent explaining to the open-minded tech folks out there.

However, after sleeping about it, I decided to comment on this a bit more.

Let me give you a brief SEO history of MyAyala.com. Back in 2006, MyAyala.com was caught applying blackhat SEO techniques. This was well publicized among the local SEO groups. Even Googler Matt Cutts made a comment about it.

Blackhat Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are online marketing techniques that are generally not accepted by search engines like Google.com. Blackhat SEO usually...

- breaks search engine rules and regulations
- creates a poor user experience directly because of the black hat SEO techniques utilized on the Web site
- unethically presents content in a different visual or non-visual way to search engine spiders and search engine users.

MyAyala.com was caught doing "keyword stuffing" back then. Today, this technique no longer works.

Coming from that experience, it is not surprising a tech company (who apparently applied SEO for MyAyala.com - correct me if I'm wrong) would say something like this. It was a VERY embarassing moment for a well-respected company like Ayala. Heads probably rolled over it.

Fact is, SEO does work (so far, until now)

Just ask all those enthusiasts at the SEO Forums. They've been making solid money over it.

The company I work for has effectively applied SEO to dominate its target market. This resulted in net sales of $161 million in 2007 (Publicly available figures).

I think those are pretty worthy results for SEO.

Of course, you have to know what your are doing. You have to also be updated with the latest trends on online marketing. Search Engine Optimization is rarely enough to get you revenue. There are things like User Experience Design, Analytics, Email Marketing, Pay-Per-Click and Affiliate Marketing to think about.

Yes, off line campaigns also work. No question. It may be expensive, but it works! Even Yahoo and Google occasionally apply TV/Billboard branding campaigns.

Shutting yourself, however, from emerging marketing trends (by being dismissive of SEO) doesn't help your company. In the long run, you'll be missing out on other opportunities that come your way.