Information Week has reported that a new startup Yield Software has launched a 'Google Optimization As a Service' Offering.

First, I must preface this by declaring myself a search-marketing 'expert'. I get the industry, very well. And, I find a lot of things wrong with this service. I don't believe SEO will ever be a 'service' as described.

I'll respond to the article on a few points:

1. First, there's the search engine optimization, where Yield scans your Web pages for keywords associated with content,
applies its library of best practices, recommends changes, and, if you
want, makes those changes.

Scanning web pages for keywords, after the keywords have already been applied, is sort of like saying 'Hey, I see you've already backed a Vanilla cake, but perhaps you should have gone with chocolate.

Proper SEO strategies will analyze what you are trying to rank for before building a content around keywords. A better service would be to have the client/customer type in a few keywords that they would like to rank for, and then suggest a plethora of topics and related keywords.

2. Second, through graphic representations of
what's hot and what's not on your site, Yield helps you understand how
to organize content for increased effectiveness, i.e. page views.

You don't need graphics to show what's hot and what's not; simple analytics/metrics will do this for you. Also, more progressive internet-markters (myself included) will argue that more page views doesn't necessarily equal better experience; in fact, it can mean quite the opposite.

If people are on your site, clicking around for something that they can't find, you may have a poor UI or information architecture; while this may work well for information-based sites that sell advertisements based on page views (I hate this model) this could mean a lost-sale for Websites that are directly selling products/services.

Either way, this isn't SEO; it's Web Analytics. You can take Analytics metrics and apply them to your SEO strategies, but this isn't SEO.

3. Third, Yield automates the process of choosing
how to spend your marketing dollars on key words. Say you've got $5,000
a month to spend on pay-per-click key words. Yield will determine which
key words will give you the most bang for the buck and on which search
engines. A later version of this service will support pay-per-click
banner and video advertising placement.

 Here they are talking about Search Engine Marketing (SEM), or paid/sponsored results, which is different than SEO, which concentrates on organic results. The article states the Yield will give you the biggest bang for your buck, and will suggest where to allocate your marketing dollars. There are already several third-party solutions that do this, and I believe any mid-sized company with a PPC budget probably already uses such tools.

If they don't, or they are blindly spending PPC dollars without allocating them to their most successful keywords or ad groups, they really need a professional SEM.

Conclusion

On paper, Yield Software's offerings sound promising, but it's simply not realistic. For one, they don't seem to have any in-house SEO campaign of their own; I can't even tell what they're trying to rank for, aside from they keyword 'Yield Software'.

Second, they don't seem to have any sort of effective PPC campaign for their own services; none that I could find, anyway.

Third, they have no 'success stories' on their Websites of clients who have had success with their services. Who have they worked with, and who have they helped rank?

Fourth, no blog? Really, an internet marketing company that doesn't have a blog? Tsk Tsk...

My prediction: if they have a competent sales, team they make money, however their clients, unsatisfied with their results, will eventually leave them and go to search consultants who can actually help them.

It's still a great time for those of us in Internet Advertising. eMarketer just released its latest US Advertising study, which compares overall advertising from the first half of 2006 to the first half 2007. The study found that total ad spending fell 0.3% in the last year to $72.59 Billion USD.

While it may be a depressing time for marketers and agencies in offline media, things are looking excellent for the online advertising industry.

Let's analyze the results:

Television Advertising is down 2.4%
No surprise here, really. Cable TV was up slightly, but overall brands are continuing to allocate less to traditional television ads.

Magazine Advertising is up 4.6%
Thanks in large part to a substantial increase in Hispanic, Spanish-language magazines, ad spending was up for magazine advertising as a whole.

Newspaper Advertising is down 5.8%
The major decline in newspaper ad spend continues to decline, which is probably a direct reflection of people moving away from tradition newspapers to online media.

Internet Display Advertising is up 17.7%
The upward trend in allocating more ad dollars towards online advertisements continues. This number includes only display (banner) ads and actually excludes paid search advertising, which is obviously a huge budget allocation for advertisers as well. This enormous jump only further the point that brands are finding potential, value and a positive ROI from online display advertising.

Radio Advertising is down 2.7%
I personally attribute this decrease to a shrinking traditional radio audience; as people become more savvy, listening to podcasts/digital audio will become more commonplace in the car or on the go. In the home and office, Internet radio will continue to draw people away from traditional radio.

In summary, the general theme of this report is while the overall advertising economy may be pulling back, we are making substantial gains in the Internet/New Media arena. A notable citation:

"For the first time since 2001, media advertising expenditures have declined for two consecutive quarters," said Steven Fredericks, CEO of TNS Media Intelligence."

This trend will not only continue, but will become more rapid over the next few years. While I believe that traditional television is safe for the foreseeable future, Newspaper and traditional Radio advertising will plummet at even faster rates.

Yes, it's an exciting time to be in Internet Marketing.