At the mediaME Forum:2010, we spoke to Elias Dabbas, the Founder of the Online Supermarket, on search engine optimization and marketing in the Middle East. He gives us his views on the growth of search in the region, and why it is a cost efficient advertising medium that generates clear ROI.

Q. Kindly introduce yourself and your company.

The Online Media Supermarket is an online marketing agency based in Dubai that provides different online marketing services such as Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and Web Analytics. Basically, we serve companies and websites who want to manage a good presence online.

Q. Would you say that SEO and SEM are becoming a specialized profession in the MENA region?

Definitely, with more people searching and with more advertisers competing, people have to go into the very detailed analysis of what key words they should use, numbers, facts and how people behave and act, by using certain keywords. So, it’s definitely becoming more sophisticated as the users are becoming sophisticated and the search engines as well are becoming more sophisticated.

Q. Tell us about client and agency awareness or the importance of Search in the MENA region.

I think they are picking up, but there are many mixed levels of awareness. Some clients don’t have an idea, some clients are fully engaged. We also have this huge range of different expertise in this. But I think search is proving itself; it’s cost effective, it’s very specific targeted and has a very good ROI.

Q. Typically, what percentage of budgets does Search get? Is it an ongoing process that should get long term strategy attention and expenditure?

Again, it varies among clients, but any online budget will usually have a search element to it, ranging from 20%-30% to even 50% -60%, depending on the client and on the needs, but it is becoming a regular part of online campaigns.

Q. The Media Supermarket manages the online marketing of several regional brands like Eurosport Arabia, anayou, anaZahra.com, and kefi.mobi. Tell us about the nature of our services to these portals.

With these portals, we provide full management of search engine campaigns through Google AdWords and  Google Analytics; analyzing user behavior and data, analyzing traffic sources and recommending certain modifications to the website, identifying the types of websites and the content that are rising in search and targetting accordingly.

Q. Will SEO and SEM grow fast in our region?

I think it has exploded already, and we already have key words that get millions of queries a month and we have millions of relevant keywords out there. As search engines become much more sophisticated in serving the region, they will give you a smaller, more relevant result as users are also becoming more sophisticated and are searching for more specific topics.

Watch the video interview with Elias Dabbas and other speakers from the mediaMEForum:2010 here.