Dear ROIGuy,
I agree with you that the recent conversation about SEO hasn’t really touched on ROI. And I think it’s a worthy subject of discussion. Some postings about the so-called “Rocket Science” debate have characterized my position as being that there is little or no ROI to SEO. This is not accurate: I’m not saying that there’s no positive ROI to be gained from SEO; what I am saying is that marketers need to approach SEO carefully and not overpay for it.

In terms of the dangers of doing SEO badly, I wrote the following in my original DM News piece which caught so much flak:

“In the last year, we’ve seen several notable cases in which marketers have been severely punished by their association with “edgy” SEO firms whose tactics have resulted in them being blacklisted by search engines.

It’s impossible to quantify the loss in revenue (or, in the case of BMW and Ricoh, the damage to brand) caused by these incidents, but it’s obvious that these incidents have caused many marketers to think about how risky a poorly-implemented or over-aggressive SEO strategy can be. ”

Please note: It wasn’t an inhouse SEO team that got BMW and Ricoh into trouble, but an SEO consultancy. This fact does not imply that inhouse teams are infallible, but that marketers need to look very carefully at the SEO firms they hire, a point that I think few would argue with.

I also want to point out another passage in my article that was overlooked by many of my critics which bears on the ROI question and, more generally, the objective value of SEO:

“SEO remains a crucial task that must be executed before, not after, one begins to conduct paid search campaigns. The value of good organic rankings remains very high, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.”

The link to the article is here:

Direct Marketing News

Regards,
Dave Pasternack
Did-it Search Marketing