Archive for the ‘Pay Per Click & SEO’ Category

Pay per click advertising has a limited value when used on its own, but when incorporated into an optimisation strategy or used to target a specific event it can produce some great results. The key to using PPC is knowing when, how and where it should be placed to set off your optimised site.

Paid search results can be easier to control and predict, but they are costly and get more so each year. This means that your PPC campaign is under more pressure to produce results. At the same time, simply optimising your site for search engines may cost less, but is harder to control. This can present problems when you’re featuring a special event or promotion and really want to draw traffic.

Both pay per click and SEO have their advantages as marketing strategies. PPC ads can go live within a few minutes and begin to direct customers straight to the appropriate page for the campaign. The organic results of search engine optimisation draw in continuous traffic over time, and allow viewers to control the experience a little bit more.

The two can be used together to great effect. Many companies waste their marketing budgets paying for year-round pay per click advertising on search engines, when such exposure really doesn’t draw in the traffic to be worth it. Companies who focus more on search engine optimisation sometimes feel the lag between optimisation and results is lost time. Strategic use of pay per click ads to support your search engine optimisation is the smartest way to go.

‘Tactical’ is the word to keep in mind when using PPC with SEO. Tactical use of PPC campaigns can direct traffic specifically. For example, say your site sells toys and you feature special stock for Halloween. The site will be optimised with keywords and tags that draw in toy buyers year-round, but a tactical PPC ad placed shortly before Halloween will draw in customers who are specifically looking for items related to this holiday. Another good example is if you decide to have a limited-time sale. SEO has the limitation that such time-specific marketing strategies don’t work as well with organic search.

PPC can also be used strategically draw attention away from any negative or undesirable results on the first page of the natural SERPs. There are times for every business when traffic is affected by bad press or a bad review that tarnishes their brand. There are a few strategies you can use to place links that are more positive within the first ten results on the search engine results page, but sponsoring a pay per click ad is a straightforward way that many companies often fail to think of.

Pay per click advertisements can also be used to get your site listed on pages your keywords would never appear. When using Adwords, it is possible to organise for Google to feature your ad on a search for your competitor’s brand. This is due to Google changing their policy on trademarks last year. Sneaky, but sound.

There are many ways in which PPC can benefit your SEO strategy. The mistake most companies make is in thinking that the two have to be separate. A PPC campaign could greatly benefit your site if used to target specific traffic. Talk to SEO Consult to find out the best way this tool can be used to support your site’s traffic.

There is always a tug of war as to which SEO strategy to adopt. Whereas the underlying idea is to increase traffic to a site, the routes which may be taken differ and the results also would differ. There are basically two ways of increasing traffic to a site namely the search engine placement and the sponsored links. The former entails going through a process of using some of the techniques at your disposal for what is usually termed natural or organic placement. Sponsored links mean that one pays to have the links to their site placed on a website.

Advantages Of Organic Placing

It has been shown by an Enquiro Research that at least 77 percent of people skip over sponsored listings and click on the natural search results. This means that there is a double loss on your part in that for every 100 people only 23 are likely to visit your site and you would also have lost money paying to have a sponsored link. The Enquiro Research goes on to state that when making a purchase, 67 percent choose organic over sponsored listings. The reason why searchers opt for the organic listing is that they trust it as it is natural. To cap it, there is no click fraud and you may not worry about your competitors.

Sponsored Links Advantages

While there may be some headaches as to the time it may take to have a good ranking with organic placement, there is a quick listing though this can be costly and inconsistent. The downside to this is that once your budget runs out, your rented ad space is gone and is being occupied by your competitor. This means that the competitors would always be looking at your rank and be prepared to capitalize on any slip up. This means that one has to be on their toes if they are to keep ahead of the pack and this means paying for the rented space.

It is also a fact that if you would like to add sponsored listings to your natural search results, go directly to the search engines and enlist. One disadvantage is that sponsored links are not included on the search engines results of the organic placement.

Way Forward

From the above it was found that the use of the organic placement has a lot of advantages in that it is of low cost, that is if there is any cost at all and there is a lasting ranking compared to the sponsored listing which only lasts for as long as you are able to pay.

One other disadvantage is that placement is not all but what happens when one visits the site. It appears most of the visitors are currently very skeptical about the sponsored links and they would rather buy from the organic listings. This shows that in the long run, it makes more sense to make sure that one has come up with the best SEO techniques for organic placement.