Balkanization of the Web?

In today's MediaPost Search Insider blog, search engine marketing professional Steve Baldwin wrote about what he foresees as the "Balkanization of the Web."

He says that, in order for suppliers of premium web content to stay alive, they will begin to release their information only to those search engines that cut them the best deals. This will result in information being divided among the various search engines, such that certain content is exclusive to specific search engines. Thus users will find themselves pushed to one engine or another, depending on the content they are seeking.

Baldwin thinks that this is the only real method by which search engines can distinguish themselves, since users care about the relevance of search results (which is now basically uniform across search engines), not the bells and whistles of a given search engine.

Now I'm no SEM expert as Mr. Baldwin is, but I must disagree with his prediction. I cannot see how such splitting up of web content is a good idea for any party involved. Nor would it ever begin to happen. Here's why.

One, the providers of premium content to whom Mr. Baldwin refers (i.e. The New York Times) are in no position to bargain for "better deals" from search engines. They are dying. Their readership is declining. They are trying to figure out how to renew their relevance and attract more readers. That is why they engage in SEO and SEM in the first place - so that any and every potential reader can find them in any and every pertinent search on any and every search engine. Creating an artificial scarcity, or threatening to, would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Two, search engines will not want to restrict themselves to only certain types of information. In other industries, concentrating all of one's resources in one product category enables a business to become truly and distinctively excellent in that category. This is not true for search engines. For search engines, there is no competitive advantage to ignoring some topics in order to focus on others. Nor will the search engines be forced to do so by the content providers, because, as noted in reason #1 above, the content providers have no bargaining power.

Three, users won't stand for it. Sharing and finding information on the Web should be free and easy. Users won't want to try several different search engines before they find the information they want - not when they can use Google to find virtually everything. And, as noted in reason #2 above, Google (and every other search engine) has no motive to limit the kinds of information it can find for users; therefore, users will continue to be able to find everything there.

The search engines and the dying providers of premium content will need to find another way to monetize their offerings. Sorry, Mr. Baldwin, but artificially limiting their products won't work. If they want to make money, they should try providing services that consumers perceive as worth paying money for.

Ever since I subscribed to a few daily marketing e-journals a couple weeks ago, I have been hearing a lot about search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO). I mentioned this fact to a friend who does SEM at TMP Directional Marketing, and she commented that SEM seems to be remaining "a very strong part of marketing budgets, even during this recession."

Perhaps SEM/SEO is viewed as a "safe" (non-risky) part of interactive marketing - it is formulaic, and helps companies reach customers who are already looking for their products - and so marketing managers rely on it when money is tight. Or perhaps SEM/SEO is so foundational to interactive marketing and e-commerce, that companies must invest in SEM/SEO if they are to have any online presence.

Whatever the reason for the prevalence of SEM/SEO, it seems (at least according to one MediaPost publication) that there is a gap between the demand for good SEM and its supply. A study by [x+1] revealed that while 65% of respondents planned to maintain or increase their SEM budgets this year, only 21% of respondents were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the results of their SEM.

MediaPost's Online Media Daily suggests that the poor satisfaction with the results of SEM/SEO stems from failing to improve the user's experience after they click on a link. As OMD put it:

"Paid search or SEO professionals might say: 'It's not my job, man' to determine what's next once a person clicks on a link or paid search ad and ends up on a client's Web site landing page. That kind of thinking could cost the industry revenue in the long term."

It's never good business to use the excuse, "It's not my job." If a person wants to be successful at what he does, he should look for ways to be remarkable and exceed his customers'/clients'/boss's expectations. If he finds a related task that is typically considered to be outside his arena, he should jump at the chance to provide an extra service that will increase his value in the eyes of those he serves.

Wise SEM/SEO professionals should take the hint from MediaPost and extend their focus to help create more integrated (and more successful) online marketing. Use their data on who clicks which links and why, and help the web design teams to develop more customer-centric landing pages that give viewers what they need. Web design teams, embrace this knowledge of users' search behavior in improving your websites. Let the data inform your design.

Keep integrating, marketers. Get past your job titles. Work together. Improve your services. Achieve good results. Help people. Win more (and happier) customers. Be successful.