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Your Friend on the Web, Diana Ratliff

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PPC

SEO or SEM: Free or Pay-For Site Rankings

Making your site more visible in the search engines – getting it to rank high on the first page of the results for a given keyword (search term) – is a goal of most of the website owners I talk to.  That’s because 90% of searchers never go past the 1st page of the search engine results.

A few fortunate website owners are savvy enough, and persistent enough, to get their site to rank without any help.

For the rest of us, hiring someone to help with SEO or SEM assumes greater importance.  I’ll describe briefly, the pros/cons of each.

Organic or Paid Search Engine ResultsSEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  “Optimizing” your site’s content and structure to make it more appealing (relevant) to Google and the other search engines is one way to get it to rank.

The other key to SEO is backlinks – getting other sites to link back to yours, so that the search engines see your site as a popular resource for those given terms.  Sites that rank well this way show up in the natural or organic results – in the main body of the page.  You do NOT pay Google or any other search engine for these rankings.

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing.  THESE are what you pay for – such as the Sponsored Ads on the top and right side of the search results pages.  Through programs such as Google Adwords, you create small ads and pay every time someone clicks on the ad.  (That’s why they’re called pay-per-click or PPC ads.)  The more you pay, the higher on the page your ad shows, generally speaking.  Some really popular, competitive keywords can cost more than $50 per click!

The advantage of SEO is that it’s cumulative, usually long-term – as you improve your site and get more and more backlinks, your site’s rank steadily improves.  And once you get it to rank, it’s easier to get it to STAY there.  Also, the vast majority of web surfers click on the natural/organic results – NOT the ads – because we don’t trust advertising.  But it can take a while for SEO efforts to get results.

The advantage of PPC is that it is immediate – you can place an ad and have it show up the same day.  It’s also a good way to test pages and offers – you can use an ad to direct traffic to something new and analyze how people respond.  But when you stop paying – your site disappears.  That’s the huge disadvantage – there is no cumulative benefit.

For most of my clients, I recommend PPC only until we get the rankings we want through SEO.  After that, PPC is only for occasional testing, or perhaps when a new product is introduced.

 

AT&T Selling Sponsored Links (PPC) – Just Say No!

I just got an email from a local business owner in the construction industry.

He said:

“AT&T is trying to sell me some online listing that they say will get me ranked. The guy says that the sponsored links they will have for me will help get me listed organically. Does that seem right to you? They are trying to charge $270.00 a month to do this with a 1 year contract.”

Here’s how I answered him (edited a bit for context.)

NO NO NO don’t do it!

It IS true that Google will find your site faster if you’re paying them to notice it by buying Sponsored Ads (PPC or Pay-Per-Click ads.)   So your site might get indexed in the organic results faster, but you won’t rank higher.

Think about it.  Google is a for-profit business.  Why would Google rank you higher for free when they can make you pay for it?

So if you’re accurately quoting AT&T I think they’re misleading you.

It IS true that having a listing on multiple places of Google’s first page will get you more clicks.  A study released by AdGooroo in 2008 found that a prominent paid ad on the same search results page makes your #1 natural ranking receive 20% more clicks.

HOWEVER… PPC ads, alone, are not as effective.

First, people know they’re ads and they don’t trust ads.

According to research reported in “The Art of SEO” from O’Reilly Books, only 50% of visitors even VIEW the first pay per click position, while 100% of searchers view the first three natural search positions.

The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization (Theory in Practice)

As far as people actually seeing the listing, the #1 Sponsored Link gets as many people noticing it as the #7 site in the natural search results.  So if you can get your site ranking above #7 in the organic results, it’s already outperforming the #1 Sponsored Link.

Second, when you stop paying, the ad goes away and so does your site traffic.  It’s like paying rent when you can own.  $270/month for a year is $3240… and this business owner will HAVE to keep paying that, year after year… in order to keep the high Sponsored Link ranking.

I’ve done a great deal of research on SEO for local businesses, and I took a look at his site. For that amount of money – I can get his website to the top of Google in 3 to 6 months, a much longer lasting solution.  And that’s pretty typical.

I’m not saying that Sponsored Links (PPC ads such as Google Adwords) are never a good idea.  For immediate visibility, they can’t be beat.  It can be smart to run PPC ads until your site does rank organically.

I’m just saying to beware of ANYONE who contacts you and tells you they can put you on the first page of Google – there’s often a catch.

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