Search Engine Optimisation v Pay Per Click (or how natural results outpull paid ones by 4 to 1) - Round 1
I know it. You know it. Google know it. And now one of their top people is even ready to quantify it. Natural rankings are far better than paid ads.
Here's a report on a recent 'b2B Marketing Debate', whereby SEO experts and Pay Per Click proponents argued the toss about how effective their respective approaches were.
http://bespokeaffiliateprogram.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/ppc-shot-down-by-seo-experts/
The most revealing part was as follows:
'Stuart Small, industry leader, business and industrial markets at Google, backed up the argument and said that with 85% of all B2B purchases starting in a search engine, paid search ads were vital to any business. He added that Google sees 80% of searchers clicking on organic results, with 20% clicking on search ads.'
There you have it. Straight from the horse's mouth. Natural results beat paid ads by 4 to 1. And, I might add, will also cost you less if done properly. Proper SEO copywriting will go a very long way towards getting you on the first page of the natural rankings, as long as it's done properly by someone like...erm me, for instance. For details, have at my main SEO copywriting page
But is there still a place for pay per click ads? As Stuart Small says, yes. But, I would add, only to a fairly small extent. Of which more next time.
Search Engine Optimisation v Pay Per Click - Round 2
The 'B2B Marketing Debate' took place at The English Speaking Union in London. Head of search at Bigmouth Media Andrew Girdwood argue that organic results were often perceived as more directly relevant, with a lower overall cost. He said: 'People don't want to put more money in. For B2B campaigns SEO has a definite advantage over PPC.'
Personally, I would go further. For many consumer campaigns, they make more sense too. For example, I've just been optimising a site specialising in mountain-related holidays - climbing and adventure in the summer, snow sports in the winter. It's aimed firmly at consumers, and for a relatively low cost is showing a dramatic rise in enquiries. The PPC campaign, meanwhile, is largely an expensive waste of money - and thanks to the search engine optimisation copywriting, is about to be dramatically scaled back.
Anyway, back to the debate report.Periscopex co-founder Simon Norris defended PPC as a marketing tool and said that its plus points were that it was easy to change, start, stop and completely transparent.
No argument there. (It's particularly useful if you need some instant response, and can't wait for SEO changes to do their magic.) But Simon also asserted that PPC was a better, more targeted way to gain leads.
Nonsense, I say. In this market, a lead is a lead. If you take sufficient time and trouble (or pay someone to do it), you can indeed narrow down your audience with a Pay Per Click campaign. So the afore-mentioned ski company could ensure that its ads are seen only at weekends and mainly by affluent younger people living in the South-East, for example. But they've still got to click through to the site.
With a natural listing, the person still has to click through. And those that do are just as likely to be in the obvious target market - youngish, living in the South-East. Just as with the paid for ads. And, of course, a natural listing is four times as likely to be clicked on (as that nice man from Google confirmed).
In fact Stuart Small from Google dismissed another of Norris's assertions:
'Norris also claimed that Google was trying to increase the number of ads clicked on by searchers and that personalisation changed the ads shown based on user intention. 'That is not true' said Stuart Small from Google. 'Google is very careful about privacy and we do not change ads based on people being logged on to Google. That is completely wrong.' '
So there you go. In nearly all instances, natural is best.