SEO, paid search, social media, analytics, display advertising, affiliate marketing, user experience optimization…the list of practices under the search engine marketing umbrella goes on and on. But it’s not always easy deciding which of these to engage in. After all, how do you know what will be the most effective and lead to the greatest ROI? How do you know where to put your focus? Unfortunately, the answers aren’t always clear.

Many search engine marketing agencies split these practices up into different services - without much integration. There’ll be an SEO department, a paid search team and an analytics expert, meaning Clients can then pick and choose what they want, like an a la carte menu. However, I don’t think this is the right approach. The best results in search marketing occur when a holistic strategy is utilized. In other words, there should be an appetizer, a salad, a few main courses, a dessert and maybe even a wine pairing. Moreover, all of these smaller parts should act together as a unified team to magnify results.

Let me give you a few examples of how this works:

• Any online campaign - whether it be SEO, paid search or social media - requires a solid analytics package to track statistics and provide actionable insights. For example, do you know how your landing pages compare in terms of click throughs and conversions? How has organic traffic been trending over the past few months? Analytics, testing and reporting represent the foundation of every search marketing effort.
  
  
• Paid search campaigns require careful optimization of keywords, headlines and ad copy in order to maximize click through rates and targeted traffic. But it doesn’t end there. What happens when users are on your actual site? Do they convert? A poorly designed site can mean thousands of advertising dollars down the drain - a lot of traffic with little conversions. In that case, you might want some user experience optimization…
  
  
• 1 + 1 = 2, right? Not always. A #1 organic listing in Google, combined with a top paid ad, significantly improves the click through rates of both (meaning the effect is more than doubled). It’s not completely intuitive, but the presence of one seems to reinforce the other.
  
  
• Similarly, if you have affiliates marketing your products via search, don’t be afraid to share your top performing PPC keywords with them. A combined effort leads to page domination, which then pushes out competitors and greatly increases your exposure.
  
  
• With the emergence of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and Delicious, it’s only a matter of time before search engines incorporate social signals of quality into their algorithms. Google is already trying to do this on its own with its SearchWiki feature. Not only that, but links obtained through social media campaigns still count for SEO rankings.
  
  
• Is display advertising dead? Not at all. As search engines evolve and become more sophisticated, SEO will become more about general marketing and less about technical tricks and on-page keyword optimization. You can already see this happening with Google giving preference to big brands in its search results. Branding is becoming increasingly important online, and engaging in a display advertising campaign is a good way to do it.

As you can see, the different components of search marketing naturally fit together like a full course meal; you can’t expect to have one without incorporating the others. That’s why, instead of singularly focusing on SEO or paid search or social media, it’s important to work on implementing an integrated keyword-driven marketing strategy to maximize results. Besides, who wants dessert before first getting the main course?