March 2009

"But I Never Click on the Paid Listings!"

I can't tell you how many times we've heard this from companies with whom we're discussing pay-per-click (PPC).  Most people easily understand the value of search engine optimization (SEO), which gets websites ranked high in the search engines' main, "organic" listings.  But many people, suspicious of advertising, claim they never click on the sponsored links.  They then generalize that their alleged behavior must be the same as the general public's.

If no one clicked on the paid listings, which is essentially Google's only revenue source, their market cap wouldn't be worth over $100 billion.

A number of research studies over the years have shown that, on an average search engine results page, about 20% of searchers will click on the paid listings while about 80% will click on the organic listings.  By receiving a majority of the clicks, certainly SEO is critical.  But even 20% of searchers can't be ignored, for a variety of reasons.

First, usually an advertiser can cast a much wider net with PPC .  Keep in mind that, with SEO, you can really only optimize a web page for one or two search terms at the most.  If you try to cram more than that into a web page, you dilute your efforts and won't rank as highly.  So if you've got a 50 page website, the most search terms you can target is 100.  But there are no such limits to pay-per-click.  You can create a campaign with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of terms.  Your only limits are your ability to manage a large campaign and your budget.  Without PPC, your website will only be visible for a fraction of the searches it could be.

Second, PPC allows advertisers to take up more room in the search engine results pages.  Again, let's say you're targeting 100 search terms via SEO, appearing in top organic listings.  If you can also appear in the paid listings for those 100 terms, you've just taken up two spaces on that page of results.  Not only does this take away a spot from your competitors, but it makes you look like a major player.  Studies have shown that there's a real branding impact if you seem to be "all over" the search engine results.  Not only do click-through rates usually more than double, but so do conversion rates on your website.

Third, there are many practical synergies between PPC and SEO.  For example, it can take quite a while for a site to get optimized and for organic rankings to increase.  While you're waiting for this to happen, investing in PPC can drive traffic and sales almost immediately.  We also find that we learn a lot from PPC that we can apply to SEO, and vice versa.  Running a PPC campaign soon after partnering with a new client allows us to confirm which search terms most people are using and clicking on.

In terms of that popular refrain "But I never click on the paid listings," we tend to think that whatever catches a searcher's eye on the search engine results page that appears most likely to solve their problem...that listing (whether it's organic or paid) is most likely to earn their click.  And since the advertiser completely controls the copy in paid listings, often they're much more compelling and benefit-oriented than organic listings, which can sometimes be irrelevant or hard to read.  For all these reasons, we find that PPC and SEO work very well together, and their sum is greater than the total of their parts.

About Us

Established in 2001, Prominent Placement, Inc. is a full-service search engine marketing firm based in Atlanta, GA. Our senior level marketing professionals tailor strategic search marketing solutions to the unique challenges of each client and deliver results that traditional marketing channels can't touch.

Through our proven process, we drive high quality traffic to our clients' websites which increase revenue and profitability.

For more information, visit our website or call 888.SEM.MKTR (888.736.6587).