just more fuel for the fire that seo is infinitely superior to adwords campaigns. Way more exposure and a fraction of the cost. Why don't adwords fans get this and put more if not most of their eggs in the seo basket?
You're wrong PPC is a must for any serious marketing campaign. If you don't use it, you're losing out.
Sometimes we find ourself stadily number 1 we disable the ads but mnore often than not we keep an ad as well. Brand penetration and increased number of channels leading to the ultimate conversion are the motives. IMO it adds credibility as well when you're all over the shop.
I hear the penetration thing... Ahem. But Adwords just seems so incredibly inefficient compared to going about getting yourself a top 3 spot. Especially when the market is fiercely competitive. For example, let's say, hypothetically of course, that I'm paying for adwords for a web hosting review site. A top 3 spot there costs about $7/click. About 8% of the clicks turn to $90 sales so I'm pretty much breaking even. Let's also say I hire an seo firm that charges $20/day for first-page results. And they're good and I'm there every day. That's $600/mo. In terms of traffic, a reasonable estimate (based on overture keyword tool) of searches on Google for the term "website hosting" is around 300,000/mo. Thats 10,000/day. If I'm on the first page and get a - conservative, I think - 7% of that, that's 700 clicks. If I assume that the same # of clicks convert to sales on search results as they would on adwords, then I'm looking at about 8% conversion or 56 sales/day. An average sale of $90 makes that a $5040 day, or $5020 after the cost of SEO. Market exposure or not, I'd rather have a $5000 day than a break-even day. Unless that whole hypothetical scenario is completely off target. If so, someone please say so, because I think that those numbers are what a whole lot of us are hoping for from SEO.
The problem is that SEO is not a definite art. You can lose it at any time... Adwords is efficient if you plan the campaign well. If you can't plan an online marketing campaign, you're in the wrong business IMO.
Hi, the eyemovement study is relatively old. People have different reading / focussing habits depending on expectations. A newspaper / news article is read differently than search results. I also noticed an increase in sites that blatently show ad's above the fold and force you to scrol to get to the beef. I find this borderline TOS and have written accordingly to ads as I do not intent to have some of my clients get frustration clicks. We have found a nice way to use ppc and seo to max out: if youre 1-4 in serps ppc on pos 7-8 if youre on 5-10 in Serps go for a high spot ppc thus covering all angles. By the way we find a position in the middle 4-6 the most rewarding in terms of ROI. Takes less effod and has less window shoppers. Yes it has less overall clicks but higher conversion so allround it's the best value point. Expat