The best UK Search Engine Marketing Companies for 2007

This is now my fifth annual survey of the top UK search engine marketing (SEM) companies based on their achieved rankings for themselves.  You may perhaps have noticed that I am now talking of 'search engine marketing' as against 'search engine optimisation' (SEO).  This is due to the change in frequency of search terms as shown by the UK Yahoo keyword assistant below. These are now the top 5 searches related to search engines.

I hope the increased popularity of Search Engine Marketing is a sign of the growing sophistication of the market rather than just a change in the Yahoo algorithms.

I then checked the rankings of the top 10 companies for each phrase in Google UK, Yahoo UK and MSN UK.  Here are the companies that achieved  the greatest number of top 10 placements:

The reason for looking at the rankings above is to gain an objective measure of the relative success of these companies as part of selecting a new supplier.  Competition for the top slots is increasing as the importance of the web increases compared to traditional media.  If an agency can do it for themselves, it should be able to do it for you.

However, for most people, achieving a top ranking is just an intermediate step to achieving something more important - a sale or a lead. Hence the most reliable information for finding a supplier is often by personal referral.  That assumes you have a suitable contact. Naturally agencies are glad to be able to quote referrals from satisfied clients - but they normally make the selection of people you can talk to. 

I believe the most important clue in assessing a new agent is knowledge about why past relationships stopped.  Was it due to dissatisfaction with the service? Was it because the client need changed?

So I am now publishing a record of all clients that have stopped using my services since the 1st January 2006.  I have asked all those concerned to answer standard questions in their own words and publish the result.  If they have not replied I show my own interpretation in italics.

Have a look for yourself at www.web4marketing.co.uk/past_clients.htm

Does that enable a better assessment?  Would your agency publish the same data?

Happy and successful 2007!

Stephen Orr