A new study released today by iProspect shows that while companies are moving toward outsourcing their search engine marketing efforts, many are failing to follow through on the very advice that they are paying for. 64% of companies that responded to iProspect said that they run into problems implementing the changes that are suggested by their search engine marketing firms. The most frequent reason given? Lack of human resources and lack of budget to actually make the changes.

"These responses tell a troubling story," said iProspect President, Robert Murray. "Companies who are unable to implement their vendor's recommendations or who cannot muster the organizational commitment to act on their SEO firm's recommendations are, in effect, committing to fail." Murray continued, "The site changes an SEO firm recommends are not tremendously difficult to implement, and the resulting visibility, traffic and conversions are often significant. The message is clear: Marketers must build solid organizational commitment not just in the marketing group, but in the IT group, to the search engine marketing campaign before engaging an SEO firm. This ensures that they have the implementation resources to execute on their SEO firm's recommendations so they can generate the results their organizations seek."

What this study tells me is that companies need to put some thought into search engine marketing before they start to outsource. Companies need to commit serious time, staff and budget to search engine marketing BEFORE they spend their hard earned dollars on a consultant. After all, what good is the information they can give you if you don't plan to do anything with it. All they are going to tell you is what you already know...your site, as is, isn't performing up to its full potential.

Read the full study at the iProspect Web site.