| |
| |
|
SEO Information |
|
|
|
PPC v Natural Search - A Cost Comparison Case Study
The attraction of Pay Per Click (PPC) online advertising is undeniable. Each click costs virtually nothing, you only pay for the clicks you get, and you set your own daily budget so you know exactly how much you're going to spend. Most importantly, your listing appears instantly. On the other hand, a high ranking in the natural search results seems unobtainable. There's a perception that hundreds of thousands of other businesses are competing for your keywords, and that makes it seem like a real rat-race. And it also seems like such a big mountain to climb; it's true that it can take months to reach the first page for your target keywords. To make matters worse, thousands of opportunistic (and some very dodgy) 'SEO companies' have emerged, looking to make a quick and big buck out of market naivety. So to CEOs, BDMs, marketing managers, webmasters, and business owners, the road to natural search ranking seems expensive, risky, and beset with traffic. But does this mean you should forget natural search? Definitely not! Firstly, most user studies to date have found that people pay more attention to natural search results because they're more relevant. That's the foundation of the success of companies like Google and Yahoo (and the reason they keep their indexing rules a secret). What's more, it's important to put things in perspective. Hundreds of thousands of other businesses may be competing for your keywords, but in most cases, they're at least as confused and disheartened as you. So the sooner you figure out the real story, the sooner you'll have the jump on them. And yes, it can take a while to reach the top, but because your competition is - for the most part - traveling blind, your early progress will normally be quite quick. In fact, for most businesses, it's not until you reach the top few pages that your progress will slow. And again yes, there ARE some dodgy SEO companies out there. But there are also some very good ones. (Go to WebProNews.com and sign up to a forum if you want to find out who they are.) So long as you know the basics of SEO you won't be taken for a ride. (See www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm for a rundown of SEO basics in layperson's terms.) But let's talk bottom line? Is it more expensive to obtain a high ranking? Certainly not! In comparison with other forms of advertising - even PPC in the long run - reaching the top of the rankings is NOT expensive. The following case study explains why. CASE STUDY For the past year, I've been working hard on the natural search results for my copywriting business, Divine Write. For my primary keyword, I'm now on page 1 of Google.com (out of approximately 900,000 search results). I've done this simply by writing helpful articles and submitting them for publication on the Internet. Luckily for me, I'm an SEO copywriter, so writing articles is all in a day's work. But had I paid an SEO copywriter to write my articles for me, I'd have spent approximately USD$5,000. Over the same period, I spent approximately USD$3,000 on Google AdWords (my ads appeared towards the top of the paid listings). Now I hear what you're saying; my natural search campaign definitely cost more in the first year than my AdWords campaign. But now that I've reached the top of Google.com, I've paused all my AdWords ads, so I'm not paying anything. If I hadn't chased the natural search results, I'd have continued paying for AdWords, spending at least another USD$3,000 next year on AdWords, and another USD$3,000 the year after that, and so on. Of course, I have to retain my high ranking. If I was paying someone to write my articles, that would involve an investment of approximately USD$1,000 per year (a saving of 67% each year). So it breaks down like this: Google AdWords investment: Natural search investment: Conclusion Obviously the competition for keywords in the copywriting field isn't as fierce as in a lot of other industries, so the actual dollar investment discussed in this case study may not apply directly to your business. The important thing to understand is that - over time - a high ranking in the natural search results can actually cost less than a high position in the (arguably less effective) paid listings. Also, these figures are based on me submitting articles to various article banks on the Internet myself. (This is a routine task requiring little skill. You should be able to purchase a list of 50 or more article submit sites from your SEO copywriter or consultant for as little as USD$99.) About The Author * Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and Article Submission Specialist. He is a director of PublishHub and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com or http://www.publishhub.com for further details, more FREE articles, or to purchase his e-book, 'SEO Secrets'.
MORE RESOURCES:
SEO - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Keyword Density And How To Use It To Keep Traffic Flowing To Your Site! Generating high traffic to your web site can be costly, or not, depending on time and effort you commit to the business.One of the easiest, least expensive and most effective ways to get visitors is via a concept called 'Keyword Density'. Onpage Optimization: Essential for Effective Offpage Optimization Onpage optimization is the process by which various elements on an individual web page are structured so that the web page can be found by the search engines for specific keyword(s) or keyword phrases.Onpage optimization will not guarantee any top rating within a search engine, only offpage optimization can offer that guarantee. If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen! There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the searchengine world of late and there are lots of conspiracytheories as to why these things happen. It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs ofintrigue. SEO Expert Guide - Keyword Analysis (part 3/10) If you imagine that building an optimized site is like cooking a meal, then keywords are the essential ingredients. Would you attempt to cook a complex new dish without first referring to a recipe? Would you start before you had all the ingredients available and properly prepared?In our analogy, key words are your ingredients and the rest of the guide (after this part) is your recipe. Search Engine Traffic Domination - How to Turn the Search Engines into Your 24/7 Salesmen Getting your website returned by the search engines as a high result is a significant goal by most webmasters because higher search results means higher traffic and revenues. However, there are some tips you can utilize to help your website gain better rankings by the search engines and ways to turn the search engines into your 24/7 salesmen. SEO and Google Indexing - Why It Requires A Complex Blend of Skills If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Getting a company's name and products, or services, onto the first page of a genuine Google search isn't a trivial piece of work. Look Out MSN Search, Here Comes Gbrowser It is official, the search engine wars are in full swing. On Tuesday, February 01, 2005 MSN officially rolled out its new search solution to all of its websites, including MSN. Marketing to Search Engines AND Humans When you were just a young and precocious student of marketing, someone explained to you how to market to humans. "Know your target audience!" said the experts. What Did We Learn from the Great Search Engine Experiment! Last Week I did a Search engine Experiment. I wanted to see if I could brand myself as the coolest guy in the universe. 7 Steps to Highly Relevant, Search Engine Friendly, and People Useful Web Site Content The task is to build a Content Rich Search Friendly and People Friendly Web Site Quickly. These 7 Steps will show you how with about 10 Hours work you can build over 50 pages of rich, Search Engine relevant content for your web SiteStep 1 - What is Your Web Site's Main ThemeThis is a Fairly easy step. What Makes The Perfect SEO Firm? SEO companies come in all shapes and sizes. You've got your solo SEOs that either a) do everything themselves and/or b) sub-contract out many aspects of each campaign while maintaining a tight control on the quality and results of the project. Screwed: Is this an inevitability in the SEO World? By about 2pm everyday, each of my team members has spoken to a good handful of clients and potential clients who have been speaking with other SEO firms. This an absolutely wonderful thing to see, as in the past in our industry, not enough of our consumers were questioning what they were purchasing. Basic Search Engine Promotion I can't tell you how many times people have asked me, "How to do I get my site to come up in the top ten of the search engines so I can get hits and sell my product?"What they really want to know is, "How can I get people to show up to my website without spending any money on advertising my site!"People usually don't like my answer because accomplishing a "top ten ranking" on any search engine always requires careful thought along with a significant amount of work.Three types of "Search engines" abound on the Internet. The Reality of Search Engine Submissions Over the last few months, search engine submissions have changed dramatically. Now is the time to analyze the way we're submitting our Web pages and to rethink our submission strategies. Quick Keyword Research that Works!!! Keywords are terms or words related to particular topic. Keyword research involves various aspects, for example; to find sales oriented keywords or to drive maximum qualified users to increase the online sales. Search Engines: Different Types, Different Strategies There are four basic types of Search Engines: Free Search EnginesPay-For-Inclusion Search EnginesPay-Per-Click (PPC) Search EnginesDirectories Because each type does things a little differently, you need to adapt your strategy to take advantage of their differences.Free Search EnginesYou can submit your pages to these engines free, but be careful. Page Rank - A Quick Overview for Beginners Page Rank (PR) is a specific value for a website page given by Google. It is Google's measure of the importance of a certain site page. Reality Check: A Straightforward Guide to Keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Web site owners need to have realistic expectations when it comes to the world of keyword selection.It's essential to understand your audience, as well as to aim appropriately at powerful, concise keywords that are not vague or generic-those broad, expansive keywords that rarely attract the audience you are seeking--and lead to disappointing rankings and wasteful expenditures of cash resources. The Search Doesnt End at Your Homepage In a recent report for a new client, I wrote: "Remember, a visitor's search doesn't end when they leave Google. Their search and the phrases associated with it continue right through to the completion of the task they have in mind. Two Myths About the Search Engine Listing Getting top search engine listing is perhaps one of the hottest subjects in the internet marketing world. The problem is that many discussions on this subject are based on speculation.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
