There's a big disconnect in the way marketing dollars are allocated to search engine focused campaigns. Let me highlight:
Not surprisingly, search advertising should continue to be the largest category, growing from $9.1 billion in 2007 to $20.9 billion in 2013.
- Source: C|Net News, June 30, 2008
OK. So companies in the US spent $10 billion last year on paid search ads, and even more this year. How about SEO?
SEO: $1.3 billion (11%)
- Source: SEMPO data via Massimo Burgio, SMX Madrid 2008
According to SEMPO's data, it's 11% for SEO and 87% for PPC (with another 1.4% for SEM technologies and <1% for paid Inclusion). Here's where I get confused:
That looks to me like most of the eyeballs are on the organic listings - the ones you can only influence with organic SEO... Huh? Maybe we should get more data on this subject. Let's turn to Enquiro:
Organic Ranking Visibility
(shown in a percentage of participants looking at a listing in this location)
Rank 1 – 100%
Rank 2 – 100%
Rank 3 – 100%
Rank 4 – 85%
Rank 5 – 60%
Rank 6 – 50%
Rank 7 – 50%
Rank 8 – 30%
Rank 9 – 30%
Rank 10 – 20%Side sponsored ad visibility
(shown in percentage of participants looking at an ad in this location)
1 – 50%
2 – 40%
3 – 30%
4 – 20%
5 – 10%
6 – 10%
7 – 10%
8 – 10%
Fascinating. So visibility is considerably higher for the organic results. What about clicks?
Thanks to Comscore, we can see that clicks on paid search results has gone down over time, and is now ~22%.
Conclusions: SEO drives 75%+ of all search traffic, yet garners less than 15% of marketing budgets for SEM campaigns. PPC receives less than 25% of all search traffic, yet earns 80%+ of SEM campaign budgets.
Questions:
- Why does paid search earn so many more marketing dollars?
- What can SEOs and the SEO industry do to help bring parity to this equation?
- Does a down economy mean SEO will be given greater opportunity to perform?
I'll save my opinions for later, but would love to hear yours.
Does this count in-house SEOs properly?
For PPC, it is reasonably easy to track spend (at the engines) and most in-house PPC people are full-time (and therefore allocable to PPC). Do the journalists at the NYT count as SEO resource? Arguably they should if they are creating content that people link to. What about the developers who put together Amazon's affiliate program? I think if you count these forms of 'SEO' in the spend, it would be much higher.
In summary, I think two things (that haven't been mentioned above) then conspire to push PPC spend higher than SEO - the ongoing expense nature of it (for large brands, the ongoing investment in 'pure' SEO (i.e. that isn't content creation or development) can be relatively small if they have got their house in order) - and the allocation problem - it's easy to tell what is PPC spend, but unless your SEO spend is entirely to an agency, it is hard to work out what should count as 'SEO' spend...
This is a great point Will - I've got little to add but a very insightful comment.
(Will)'..it is hard to work out what should count as 'SEO' spend' but mainly for big players, what is the ROI on terms of $ ? that's all it counts for them. And it is something that you cannot really measure with SEO apart from the number of visitors.
Wow...I'm going to get thumbed down to the coldest part of hell for this but here it goes.
If your primary concern is SEO, then don't bag on PPC. I never bag on SEO from my blog.
I manage clients that spend millions on both, are ranking organically for the most competitive terms while they see their net income double and triple because PPC and SEO work together. SEO is slower, therefore the expense is lower for these particular clients. They would put more money towards SEO (beyond the $20k-$40k they already spend per month on it) if the results had a wider, faster reach. When they see the return on investment from one set of targeted keywords, they move to the next with the ROI obtained from the previous while leaving some on the table to manage and continue to strengthen their organic rankings. The same goes for PPC - except it is much faster moving, has a much wider reach, and proves a 'good enough' ROI to reinvest in it even more. It's quite scalable...just like SEO, only a little faster for the most part.
Let me tell you about the conversion lift that PPC brings to SEO and vice versa - One company was making roughly $100k/mo from SEO 1 year ago. That seemed to be steady as they ranked in the top 10 for well over 1000 high quality terms. Enter PPC - within 3 months, their new income was at $400k/mo at an expense of $200k/mo on PPC. PPC contributed to doubling their 'net' even though the second $100k/mo net was more expensive than that provided by SEO. Their entire net increase could not all be attributed to PPC. We had return visitors, and we noticed that several who clicked on paid search ads would come back via an organic route and vice versa. I would say the doubling of net came because of the natural lift that each (PPC AND SEO) had on the other. Of course, without that added reach and traffic from PPC the SEO may/may not have increased two-fold within 90 days because PPC let us target 10,000+ new keywords/combinations where the company did not have quite the exposure that SEO was currently bringing to the brand/site - coupled with 'owning' more real estate for the 1000 or so terms they rank well for.
At the very least, I would never turn off PPC when a client gets top rankings via SEO - the added lift can be incredible. You just have to learn what combination gives you that ROI lift/brand lift. When I say combination, I mean which ad text compliments the organic listing, what position is positive vs negative, when is there a real ROI, etc. It's all in the analytics. :)
Bottom line for me: SEO is not better than PPC. PPC is not better than SEO. PPC is not easy 'out of the box' beyond the surface. SEO is definitely technical. They NEED to work together because they MAKE YOUR CLIENTS MORE MONEY, MAKE YOUR COMPANY MORE MONEY.
The End.
Irony of ironies....
I had a call this morning from google about paid search and a 30 day free support programme on setting up a campaign.
I asked about help with webmaster tools, (seo) No dice.
Of course google make money out of ppc, so no great surprise.
The ease with which a ppc campaign can be developed, complete with google holding your hand for free, against a 'what about the webmaster tools and seo' and no telephone help resource (from google at least), is indicative of the relative ease with which a ppc campaign can be structured against the more long term nature of seo.
As I mentioned in my earlier reply, my preference and focus is seo, but ppc is a relative breeze... Didn't say either was easy to get right.
I don't see any reason why you shoud receive any thumbs down for your comment. You clearly and thoroughly expressed your opinion on both the post and your own work and in my opinion it came across very clearly and without contempt or malice. You actually put a great case study in there as well which always helps to solidify an argument.
Thanks. The case study is a bit vague...but it's real.
I guess I thought defending PPC on an SEO blog might get me thumbed down a bit. lol :)
I guess I forgot that this community is, all in all, fair. I love this SEO community!
I totally agree with you. Our clients have shown significantly rise in the conversions as well as rankings while doing both PPC & SEO side by side.
PPC is something that the client has been able to pick up and play with themselves prior to talking to an SEM pro.
PPC is plug-and-play web marketing that works out of the box, SEO is perceived as requiring a pre-existing skill set that doesn't do anything overnight.
I often find myself driving to work instead of cycling because it's quicker and easier. Unfortunately it's also more expensive and not as good for me long term. I know this but...
You have described it nicely with perfect example.
You have described it nicely with perfect example.
Rand,
"PPC receives less than 25% of all search traffic, yet earns 80%+ of SEM campaign budgets." - I think the reason for this is that PPC is easier for companies to grasp than SEO... You make a good point, we have some work to do!
I think part of our work as SEOs is to educate our clients of the ROI that SEO can have. If we can demonstrate clearly that the work we do for them has a higher ROI than paid search they will try SEO out and as they see the ROI, they should logically increase budgets.
What we are seeing in our agency is that because of the down turn in the economy, companies are asking us to work on their SEO because they see it as a wiser investment in the longrun. We keep needing to tell our clients that although SEO has a higher ROI in the long run, short term gains are seen quicker with paid search.
On a side note, while I agree with you that SEO doesn't have the share of marketing spend it should have, I think the enquiro study you've shown is a little misleading... When sponsored results are on the left above the organic results they have a higher visibility than 50%.
I personally agree with davidtowers. That´s how it is at our Company, because of SEO is new to them and harder to understand, they tend to rely more on PPC. SEO also takes longer to see results, PPC does it inmediatelly.
The information we need has to do with being able to show ROI on SEO as compared to PPC. Something like the keyword "widgets" on position number 1 will bring you such number of visitors and such number of conversions and so on with #2, #3, etc, in such time with these resources at a cost of $$$$$$, as compared to PPC, etc, etc, etc.
not only as David says, PPC is easier to grasp for most companies, but it is also the #1 solution sold by many agencies as the best measurable ROI tool. The client will know what KWs are making the sales and will be able to do the calculation very easily.
Moreover : 1 conversion for 115$ of PPC for instance, will be easier to present at the board, rather than we have 2260 visitors per month, and expect 5000 in the next 3 while spending 8000$.
Organic listings aren't really geared to making conversions in the same way paid ads are. Sure they have a 'buy now' section somewhere on the site, but some sites don't even have a product to sell online. They just want to build brand awareness.
Paid ads with a good landing page are specifically designed to convert a visitor into a buyer. If Organic listings were designed to take users to a landing page and complete the sale the same way that paid ads are then I think we would see the difference in PPC and SEO diminish.
Mine are!
To most business owners, SEO is still perceived as some kind of Voodoo ...and, therefore, a gamble. Meanwhile, PPC virtually guarantees placement depending on how much you are willing to pay. Although this thinking is incorrect, I think it’s easier to make a case for something perceived as a sure bet.
...and to add insult to injury, there skill level of SEOers out there varies greatly, making the gamble even greater.
I think that the same could be said for the skill level of PPCers also. I mean especially if you have companies that are doing it themselves with one of their staff members who is not at all a marketer, let alone an internet marketer.
I definitely agree, but I don't think that's the general business perspective.
Absolutly,
The skill level even between agencies is remarkable. The fact that anybody with an email address and credit card can open an adwords account means the barriers to entry and almost non-existant. Then when you consider anybody can also become an adwords 'professional' very shortly after if they understand how to open a 2nd tab in thier browser means pretty much everybody is offering PPC as a service.
When you whittle it down to the folks who are actually ad-schuling properly, geo-targetting and actually using simple things like bounce rates you're left with a relatively small % of PPC folks. Add in more complex things , like attributing conversions between multiple clicks and it's a tiny minority.
argh, jsut realised I've replied to a 6 month old topic - my bad!
I very much agree with previous comments but I also believe it is important to keep in mind that PPC is one of the most fascinating, brand spanking new ways of advertising. Marketing has never seen the likes. Never before have marketers created an advert, measured it and fine-tuned it all within hours. Never before have accountability been so high (and let’s face it – the clients love it). And, never before have advertisers been able to set a cost per accusation or sale.
No wonder the budgets for PPC are huge, when you can have a set figure for investment and it will never fall below your desired return – the more you spend, the more you make and on and on it goes. This is truly what is so remarkable about PPC. Speak to any sales/business dev person that are not involved in online marketing, explain to them the concept of PPC and they will most likely have wet dream of selling this product within minutes. That's how powerful it really is.
Having said all that, SEO is still my true love and PPC will forever be banned to the back alleys as the filthy, money grabbing toyboy he is.
Okay, this is hilarious and I love it. Thumbs.
"Having said all that, SEO is still my true love and PPC will forever be banned to the back alleys as the filthy, money grabbing toyboy he is"
This may be rehashing things that have already been said in other ways, but here's my thoughts:
1) PPC is easier for traditional advertising sorts to understand. It's similar to putting up a billboard or taking out an ad in a magazine, only as plenty of people have said, it also comes with lovely crunchy numbers for people to play with.
2) SEO doesn't necessarily attract advertising types. It attracts both very maths-oriented, technical people and very creative, artistic people who may, in another lifetime, have been programmers (type one) or writers / artists (type two). They wouldn't necessarily have been marketers.
3) SEOs have a spotty reputation with many people.
So what do we know about advertisers? Well, they like to spend money on ads. Lots of it. They get a bit uneasy when the traditional practice of buying an ad and seeing the return is upset. The mix of creativity and technicality required in organic SEO completely upsets it.
The programmer and the writer also aren't necessarily as keen to spend advertising money (the thought sort of appalls me if I think I can do it myself with organic search). There are more traditional advertising types in marketing so they're still pouring a lot of money into paid search.
Did this make any sense at all? No? Forgive me, I'm pre-caffeine ;)
It's a simple answer for me (not reasonable though):
PPC is fast. Upload campaign now - see it and the clicks/sales in few hours tops.
The companies with these big budgets have certain requirements before starting any marketing campaign - reliable tracking and results are one of them. And lets be honest in most companies tracking results became so obsessive that it became more important then what is really profitable.
Rand - I think there are plenty of concerns that others will highlight about PPC being easier to grasp and so on but imagine for a second that people understood SEO and PPC together. I think in this case PPC spending might still be bigger because while SEO drives 75% + of search traffic, it's driving the traffic to a smaller number of sites. With PPC, it's driving less traffic but I think it's spreading that traffic across a greater number of sites.
My initial reaction was that this was all pretty obvious because:
1. PPC gets you instant visible results.
2. A lot of PPC campaigns are run by people (like me) who do not really know what they are doing and so they tend to result in money wasted on phrases that are too broad, misdirected etc.
3. PPC is about instant customer acquisition, time sensitive campaigns (Valentines) etc etc.
However, thinking about it a bit more, I suspect the answer is that a great deal of SEO work is done by the client. Our SEO outfit mentors us, advises on strategies, highlights weaknesses/strengths in our site, but the reality is that it can't produce the quality of content about our products that we do. It can't prioritise the strands of our business as we do and it is tough for it to be as involved in the development of our business as we have to be.
So we spend a reasonable sum of money on their advice and then spend a HUGE amount of time doing the work. In the numbers cited by Rand, the time of SEO customers is (I am pretty sure) free...
It seems to me the main reason companies spend more money on PPC is that they seem to think they have more control. They spend more money, they get more visibility. We know it doesn't quite work that way, but I think that's the mentality.
In reality, if we do a better job at educating, then they'll hopefully realise that not only is SEO better in the long-run, but if you spend more on SEO you get more bang for your buck with SEM!!
Surely that reasoning would help our clients justify the spend to their bean-counters too ;)
It seems like everyone's answer is right in line with mine. Companies don't like or understand PPC more (though they like to think they do), it just gets more money because it's trackable and the results are immediate. At least in the US, business owners are all about instant gratification. Only now in a down economy do they see that investing in long term things like SEO/content is worth their dollars more.
SEOs and the industry can do more by education only. We have to focus more on explaining that there is no secret formula, no magic. SEO is just like every other branch of marketing, just a little more technical. Ask an ad buyer, is there a specific path they use to get sales out of a magazine placement? Nope. They learn about the audience, mold the message and look of the piece to match, and then set it out there. It takes time to craft that message and get it right, it takes time to brand build. In SEO, it's the same thing. This is not a black craft as many business owners think. It's just forcing them to marry marketing and IT, which can be very scary sometimes.
A down economy is the perfect chance for hearty businesses to focus on SEO, but only if they are in it for the win. It's a strategy, sure, but it's got to be for the right reasons. Developing good content for the benefit of the end user has to be the end goal, not just to gain more business. That comes with the focus on the end user. Cause and effect.
"Only now in a down economy do they see that investing in long term things like SEO/content is worth their dollars more."
Well said, Kate. So far that thinking has not seemed to trickle down to the smaller businesses I talk to on a daily basis. There may need to be a change in their mindset, but part of it is they are choosing between paying the rent and SEO, and the larger companies are choosing between TV advertising and SEO, so it's more of a squeeze.
There is also something to be said for SMB's just purely creating content in this economy since that is free. Chris Smith also has a great post about coupons to capture more search traffic (and customers) on SEL today.
Just read this article that cites research showing PPC (for online retail, anyway) converts 50% higher than organic.
https://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=28133
One bonus about using PPC is that you can link it all in the analytics fairly easily and make the spend more accountable and predict an accurate (ish) cost of conversion.
Many good comments above, but I honestly think Google built a magical money-making machine when they created AdWords. Any ma-and-pa operation can put a little money in, pull the handle, and hope to cash out on the AdWords slot machine. It's easy, has almost immediate feedback, and is borderline addictive.
I don't mean that to attack PPC - I manage campaigns for a couple of clients and make them money doing it. For others, I've advised away from it. The problem is that many, many companies are playing the PPC game and losing, while not seeing the benefits of SEO due to either lack of understanding or the fact that our industry still has too many snake-oil salesman.
Then again, put yourself in my shoes - usability and testing have measurable and proven effects on ROI, and trying to sell either is a bigger battle than even organic SEO.
I think PPC and SEO are mostly engaged by the small businesses and they all have the wrong expectation. They think PPC is just outbidding their competitors and SEO is just adding keywords to meta tags.
They are totally naive or flatout ignorant of the complexities. And when they look for services, they either think they can do it themselves or they only pay the cheap guy. And naturally, you get what you paid for.
Of course, plenty of fake SEOs, SEO idiots, and plain liars promote SEO as a magical thing - and these small biz eat it up.
I have found that most companies that failed in PPC failed because of their own faults. Their budgets were too low, their keywords were not strategic enough, their quality score was too low, not enough or no targeted landing pages at all, etc. All of these things add to their failure in PPC.
Also, there's a discourse in communication, especially with the mom-n-pops that engage in PPC. The Reachlocals and Yodles and even Yellowbooks - that target small businesses and try to get them into a "mutual fund PPC" does a great disservice. The services are usually not all that impressive - business can be generated, just nothing to scream about - and there's little to no accountability for the service. Unfortunately, the small guys that bought the service thinks they bought PPC or SEO - and then walk away with a sour taste in their mouths.
Again - it comes down to these businesses can only fault themselves. Ignorance is no excuse - not when money is on the line.
I think PPC is a great tool and especially good to help a business generate traffic and sales right away - and to help uncover the effective keyword searches that generate sales. In my opinion, there should be no SEO - just SEM which starts off with PPC then goes into SEO. Think of PPC as training wheels for SEO.
Not sure if anyone mentioned this or not... (didn't want to read all the comments). I love the article and very interesting, but isn't one of the huge benefits of Paid Search is the ability to send that visitor to a landing page, making it easier to collect info, track a conversion, come up for competitor terms, etc... Any thoughts?
i don't know if anyone has said this already, but how about using a heat map that shows the paid listings above the natural SERPs? is it still the same then? look at seth barnburner's comment.
this is media buying 101, people. like Tom_ pointed out, a great number of sites are able to advertise, not to mention they have control over the message and drive traffic to the page the advertiser wants it directed to. Natural SERPs don't always guarantee the reach and frequency that PPC can. Plus there's branding issues as well. blah blah blah . . . .
the logic of this post is like saying because people are more likely to notice a Porshe or a Corvette more than a bus, you shouldn't advertise on busses. This is a joke post right?
(editted the over-usage of "motherfucker", "motherfucking" and "fucking".)
I think that the general premise of the article is good (though some of the comments made by PPC folks are dead on).
Here are my three points of contention:
1) The heat map is a bit misleading because it happens to be based on a search query that didn't turn up any paid ads on the top left. Moreover, there are no universal search listing either (maps, news, etc...) so I think that the image is both outdated and misrepresents the breakout of clicks for the average search query.
2) Since there are media costs associated with PPC it will always have a larger gross spend when compared to SEO. If we assume a 10% management fee and apply it to the figures presented in this article, it becomes apparent that the "management" costs of PPC (not counting media costs) is really no more than double that of SEO management.
3) Lastly, if you've worked long enough in the agency space, you quickly realize that different companies/verticals have different needs. For example, publishing companies that rely on ad revenue have very little need for PPC but benefit greatly from SEO while consumer good companies will often benefit greatly from PPC while struggling to get good ROI from SEO (at least in the short term).
I've noticed several comments that say that Rand's heat map is misleading because there are no paid ads at the top.
Then I must be seeing things because I see the blue bar that says "Sponsored Links" and there is one listing there, above the organic results. Can't exactly read it, but isn't that a PPC ad?
Personally, I'm seeing a greater interest in PPC right now due to the upcoming depression. The concept of traffic at the price of pennies, that can be easily controlled by a daily budget is very appealing to many companies.
I agree with many of the comments above re PPC being percieved as an easier route to search traffic.
I think the main difference comes down to ROI tracking and conversion analysis. With PPC I suspect it is much more standard practice (and easier with built in conversion tracking on all the main PPC platforms) to measure where every single penny is going and what kinds of return your investment is giving.
The problem with how the majority of SEO campaigns are performed (and I have been as guilty of this as anyone) is that its success is measured in vague terms such as rankings and traffic. If conversion analysis and ROI reporting was done to the same level of detail for SEO as it is for PPC, I think you would start to see a big shift happening in terms of clients being willing to invest in PPC because you would see such fantastic ROI figures!
A lot of this can be achieved by proper analytics and setting your conversions and proper ecommerce tracking. However the obstacles to doing this properly for SEO are:
However I do think that the economic slump will push more investment towards SEO due to its "free traffic for life" USP.
Thanks Rand for starting this important discussion.
Agree with Darren Atkinson
IMO it comes down to perceived accountability. A trip down the SEO route has its dangers, not least the fact you are at the whim of a changeable algorithm, something which is more guaranteed in terms of Paid Search.
There is also an issue with speed, ie that of turnaround. Campaigns can be started in a matter of minutes (theoretically), and creative, can be altered and live within minutes, something that is not possible in SEO.
Finally, Paid Search is a far more familiar channel to traditional marketeers in terms of its commonality with many offline channels (ie you pay your money - you get 'results'). SEO is more technical and does not have the traditional association - and thus 'suffers' as a result
I agree with and have enjoyed reading all of the comments, most of which are pertain to semi-savvy companies that have an idea of what the differences are, but I think a BIG part of it is that not that many people don't even know what SEO is, but the "paid search results" are listed as such. Even the average web user knows that there is some way to pay to get your ad in there.
Out of the last 30 clients (small business owners) to come through our doors, I would say about two of them had any idea that SEO was a service, but many of them had heard of pay per click through a realtor friend or are just inherently aware that paid results do exist: they're labeled sponsored links. People think that Google has their own autonomic way of organically ranking pages that is untouchable.
While we are able to educate the clients that come in with this misconception, my guess is that so many DIYers out there are opting to try out pay per click, because, as others have said, people think they can manage it themselves and (probably) have fun with it, even if they don't know what they're missing out on by not investing in SEO.
It's been a little while since I've seen one of those "no one understands what it is that I do for a living" threads on here, but since I've worked doing SEO full time and told all friends, family, and acquaintances what I do, none of them had heard of it. I'm sure this has something to do with how these marketing dollars are being dispersed. It's easy to forget this sometimes.
I only got halfway through the comments before I thought I should add mine, so apologies if this was already covered.
I click on PPC ads because I figure these are companies that are offering a product that I'm probably looking for. Now I know a majority of users might not consider the ads the same way, but for many who do click on PPC ads I think they might be more-so in a 'buyer' mode than those just clicking through the results.
I consider organic results to be more information oriented. I consider ads to be more product/sales oriented, and sometimes that's what I'm going for.
My opinion is that the reason for this massive gulf in spending is that to a business, PPC advertising is guaranteed.
Businesses who do any kind of research or talk to people know that with PPC they can pay a certain amount and be guaranteed to have their ad shown to potential visitors which generates a certain amount of traffic.
With SEO there is no such guarantee, any business investing in this route has to have much more trust in their chosen SEO company than they would in their PPC management company.
One further reason which I also think adds to this gulf is the fact that PPC is far easier to implement. It may be tricky to implement well, but on the whole PPC campaigns don't require looking into site architecture, linking policies, content optimisation (well not to the level that SEO requires!), etc...
PPC can also provide easy testing for keywords and other datapoints that are necessary for good SEO. Is this right? Or can you launch right into a good SEO campaign without any PPC...
Thought provoking post, but I think the answer is pretty simple. As your heatmap indicates, there's a ton of attention in the upper triangle of the SERP...while SEO has many benefits, the easiest and most guaranteed way to be active in that triangle is through PPC, especially in competitive verticals. 98% of online advertisers could SEO themselves to death and never get coverage in the top 4 results for "cars" "home loan," etc. etc. Does SEO have benefits even if you can't ever get into those top spots? Undoubtedly, but from a volume perspective, you can see how PPC is a sound, measurable investment.
We have a similar situation in our company. SEO is seen as the little brother of PPC and isn't given as much time or resources. It is true that businesses like to see cold hard figures and PPC can provide this better than SEO. The article is really interesting but as someone else has said, a bit misleading with out sponsored listings appearing above the natural ones.
I've had some cold calls from companies claiming guaranteed top 3 listings. Once I quiz them on this claim it turns out they mean PPC listings...
If they can sell these as organic - there's a lot of decision makers out there who just don't know the difference. Which explains the disparity - hell Google play on the ambiguity to rake in the dollar.
I would echo many of the previous comments on this thread with regard to SEO versus PPC.
The agency where I work actively encourages clients to undertake both SEO and PPC; with a view to slowly reducing PPC spend (and even eventually turning it off) once the company's organic listings are up to par.
However, we work for a lot of insurance clients who simply do not have the budget to ever compete for the very competitive and high traffic 'car insurance' type search terms, and for them PPC is an excellent way of getting their mitts on some of that traffic.
Edited for spelling errors!
I think the UK insurance market is a slightly different beast to many industries though, working directly for an insurer, where I previously worked for an agency is like walking into a different world. We recently had a conference with our partners in other countries, and they have a very different view on SEO due to the reduced number of aggregators in the industry.
@ robbothan, I would disagree that the skill threshold for PPC is low, yes anyone can turn an ad on, but to effectively maximise the revenue and optimise a ppc campaign is a skill set all of it's own, and takes as much hard work and skill as any other form of marketing. Anyone can write a title tag too, but that doesn't mean that the skill threshold for SEO is low. I think there is a lack of information and discussion around making the best use of PPC though.
@Yoshimi I agree that thee is a great deal of skill involved in effectively managing a PPC campaign. Yes it is true anyone can setup a campaing, get it running and see some results. But a truely optimized PPC campaign will be one that hopefully reduces cost per click or maintains while increasing clicks and conversions.
Hey Yoshimi, I think thats my point - that the treshold is low- I'm not by anymeans saying that there is not advanced PPC - there most certainly is, however the threshold to begin PPC is certainly lower for marketers.
In online media, advertisers understand banners first, SEM second and SEO third. The first two line up with their traditional ad buys. Marketing managers don't have to sell the idea to the people that pay the bills.
Banners are just as easy as buying an ad in a newspaper: expensive, difficult to measure, but must be doing something, right? But SEO is consultancy spend, and that means maximum suspicion.
I believe there are a few factors to the difference. As discussed earlier more people can grasp the PPC concept easier. PPC is also instant whereas SEO will often take several months to achieve benefits. Also, PPC is often cheaper then running an SEO campaign. I mean if you do SEO correctly you are going to start the campaign by fixing the messed up architecture of the clients website. With a PPC campaign I can set a $300 budget, tweak some settings and voila I have traffic to my messed up search engine hating website.
Awesome study Rand. It's interesting to see the data broken down like this. I think SEO actually needs more quantifiable marketing research like this to keep shoring up SEO.
I think the problem isn't the ratio of company spend to SEO driven results. The problem is much more loaded than these numbers appear.
As some already have stated, SEO is harder for companies to grasp and to quantify. That makes it hard to assess value. SEO is, after all, a long-term marketing solution. It takes time to get results, it requires constant upkeep. And the constant upkeep is "link-building" - which itself can encompass building lots of content, building widgets, posting something newsworthy, etc. That's pretty hard to grasp and requires a high level of understanding/intelligence.
Furthermore, the mindset of people with SEO is "use the engines to rank higher, thereby drive more traffic and more sales to the website". Well with that mentality, asking them to then grasp that SEO is long-term and requires constant upkeep in link-building which is by itself a separate monster that includes social media, blogs, press releases, articles, widgets, reciprocal links, blah blah blah - that's really asking a lot.
It's easier to show a company that it costs $10,000 a month in PPC for a national campaign in this particular market. Cost of each click is $1.00 and average cost of acquisition is $80 per lead with a CTR of 2%. Our goal is drive CTR to 5% and reduce CPA to $40 per lead. Those are numbers companies can understand.
But 3 other things stand in the way of greater acceptance of SEO.
1) too many people say they know SEO. Sorry, but the truth is, people and companies who say they know SEO are a dime a dozen. The Real SEOs are a lot more quiet. I find it very difficult to believe a web hosting company that specializes in domain registration suddenly knows what SEO is and can offer that as a "package" to new domain buyers.
2) too many people looking at SEO still think that SEO is"just putting keywords in meta tags" and think it's worth $200 one time or $50 a month -or some BS like that. As long as expectations like that still exist, SEO has an uphill battle.
3) the truth about SEO is that it's very simple and relative. Depending on keywords, SEO can be very easy or very hard. Low volume keywords vs high volume keywords, general keywords vs specialized or localized keywords. Some companies have keywords with such low competition they can do it easily themselves. Some - like real estate or finance - are so competitive, no one can afford it without significant capital investment. This truth makes it hard to effectively present SEO as a quantifiable investment - since one company may invest $100,000 before results while another invests $10,000 and gets results immediately.
In my experience, there are two reasons PPC gets the money;
1. It is more predictable. As mentioned in prior comments, anyone with a reasonable background in direct marketing can quickly grasp the economics of PPC. One can look at volume, cost, and conversion rate and make a pretty good prediction of the initial ROI of a program even before starting. The same cannot be said for SEO. Even though it returns better over the long term, it is not as quick or as predictable.
2. SEO requires the client to do things in order to be effective. Update their site, create new content, etc. This is not easy in many cases and clients would rather pay an outsider to do things on their behalf, hence PPC wins. Now, some clients have the wherewithal to do the leg work of SEO themselves and some trust their partners to do it for them, but many care caught between and PPC is "easier" even if the economics are not as favorable.
So, people prefer quick and easy over hard but ultimately more effective. Human nature at work?
Having worked on both SEO & PPC campaigns in a national ad agency I think to clients PPC is a safe bet.
All this adds up to a warm and fuzzy feeling from the client perspective that their money is actually getting them the results they were looking for. It's also very similar to buying traditional ads and display ads, from their mind's eye. And it's very easy to pitch PPC and to show clients results of our PPC efforts.
Although marketing managers are aware of SEO, it's still a bit of a black box for them. They know it's good for your website, but when given a choice they'll go with PPC b/c it'll get them results much sooner.
From an agency revenue perspective SEO in comparison to PPC provides a much smaller opportunity for a continuous revenue stream. It's very lucrative for agencies to manage a PPC campaign b/c they know they'll get a percentage of ad spend every month and can consistently rely on that revenue.
From my own experience, pitching SEO is much more difficult than pitching PPC to a person who has a laymen's understanding of SEO. There's definitely room for improvement there. You really need to have a client who is already convinced of SEO (from a business perspective) before they even walk through those agency doors. Otherwise it's an educational uphill battle.
Does a down economy mean a greater opportunity for SEO? Sure, when compared to traditional media; but not so sure when compared to PPC.
My $0.02 cents..
I would think in this economy people would shy further away from organic to PPC due to the reasons you stated. If SEO is a black box then they'll stick with a sure thing. Everyone is feeling a lot less risk averse these days.
With that said, I've noticed a lot of my clients are scrutinizing the PPC spend a lot more now. They are still convinced of it's worth, but with tighter budgets, every large expenditure is getting a double and triple look.
This number will always be stacked in favor of PPC because SEO can be done without spending. There are free resources everywhere for learning SEO, and there are free resources everywhere for learning about PPC. But PPC can not be done without spending money. Regardless of how many blogs a person reads, eventually they have to put cash on the barrel head if they want to start a PPC campaign.
The one thing commenters are not mentioning is that many people using PPC have no hope of every getting highly ranked based on SEO.
If you are an overtly commercial website selling a second-tier product, its very tough to get into that top 5 of organic listings. Its hard to get good links, and Google seems to spend most of its time making and enforcing rules that keep your site down. All in the consumer's best interest, of course.
From my POV the biggest factor is the months prior to acheiving anything. In a very targetted enviroment, saying " you need to spend the equivilent of your entire PPC budget, for up to a year before you see any returns" is enough to put me off, and I do SEO.
When you add to that that when there is an increase in sales from the website, Marketing say it is because of the DM they have been doing, web design say it is because they have improved the customer journey, Pricing say it is because they have discounted products x and y, and the SEO says it is because they have gone from position 14 to position 9. Who is an MD to believe?
Rand, any idea where I can find an eye tracking study that includes local search results with the map and the phone numbers atop the search results?
Overall, good points. Useful to have some actual numbers to put to the discussion. Couldn't you have picked an example eye tracker without a sponsored link at the top hogging all the clicks though?
I agree with you about the example. There is no data listed above for the percent viewed for that sponsored link at the top in that example, just the sponsored links on the right side of the page.
I would like to see what the data is when there are three sponsored listings at the top of the page. I would think those numbers would change as those top sponsored links are a lot more attractive to customers than the right side bar sponsored links.
Its probably worth adding the credibility behind PPC vs SEO in addition to my comments above (egain comments - old account)
How many people here have dedicated account managers (in some capacity) at Google, MSN and Yahoo for PPC. I would suggest the vast majority, however it is nigh on impossible to get any support from the engines in a simiar capacity for SEO support, bar some random (and sometimes slightly erm ambigous ) Matt Cutts posts.
Such backing to PPC is a huge tick in the box from a client perspective, and from an SEO perspective it has to be said still suffers from a 'blackart'/technical association.
It is possibly also worth echoing DustinFishers comments re: side vs top PPC CTR. I would suggest this is also likely to differ signfiicantly based on the relevance of the associated term and thus in terms of Conversion vs CTR for PPC vs Organic - the ratio would be much closer
Probably because "only first page counts" way of thinking. For SEO, in most cases you need long term strategy (time) and large number of companies don't have it (ergo, lets go with PPC and we'll see how it goes - and keep SEO as a backup or secondary plan)
And of course, IMHO, PPC can be measurable in X different ways - with precision.
I agree, I think it comes down to measurability. It's just a lot easier and more precise in a lot of ways to measure the success of a PPC campaign than an SEO campaign.
SEO and PPC budgets are not comparable. Yeah, I said it! Sure, they are both search-related, but beyond that, they are MASSIVELY different.
There are big differences between the two, and those differences show why SEO will NEVER come close to matching PPC spending.
1) It's a different model. PPC traffic is expensive. Organic traffic is free(ish). PPC spend grows click-for-click with the traffic whereas well-spent SEO dollars scale over time.
2) PPC is quick. SEO is slow. It will take months increase organic traffic, but PPC will get you traffic the same day.
3) PPC is easy. SEO is difficult. No matter how fubar your site's optimization is, you can always buy clicks.
4) PPC mistakes are relatively cheap. SEO mistakes are costly. A misstep in PPC can be fixed in a matter of hours while SEO mistakes take weeks to correct (if you're lucky!).
5) PPC has a low starting cost, while SEO is expensive at first (if you haven't done it from the beginning). It requires planning (which is something that is usually in short supply).
I've always thought these types of comparisons are pretty sensational. You just can't make a good comparison of the two on the basis of budget.
The SEMPO data cannot possibly include all of the in-house SEO professionals' salaries where the bulk of SEO is spent (outside of agency spend).
Some small businesses will also have someone dedicated to SEO, and other tasks as well, so their salaries won't be reflected in their numbers as those people usually hold titles like 'webmaster' and 'tech support'.
Also not reflected would be say a front end developer that is writing clean code for spiders and light weight for faster downloads, but not necessarily with the title SEO. We have a project right now where we're spending large amounts of money for a site redesign involving front end code specialists, but mainly for the purpose of good site/page structure for SEO purposes.
I don't put much stock in the SEO numbers provided in your post.
that's pretty much what i was thinking too. ppc numbers are easy to collate. seo numbers??
i forgot my rule; always check the source. how did they collect their data?
that's pretty much what i was thinking too. ppc numbers are easy to collate. seo numbers??
i forgot my rule; always check the source. how did they collect their data?
SEO requires good technical knowledge and know how to get the website ranked whereas PPC require financial and mathematical calculations to get your website ads listed on top.
PPC - the more money your pour in the more high ranking you get. SEO - even taking high money risk may backfire sometimes.
PPC - its instant. SEO - Time consuming.
PPC - Temporary ranking and traffic, as long as your run the campaign it good, the moment you stop your campaigns / budget it stops. SEO - it last long and traffic keeps coming in even if you stop your campaigns.
I manage both paid and natural search campaigns (in house) for a big company. Since we're in Internet tech, the company "gets" SEO - and I have a team and resources committed to it.
What I have found is that on keywords where we're running PPC advertising and have a good natural position, we increase results considerably having BOTH running.
Since they are both inhouse teams (ironically, the same number of people, too), the only measure I have is on budgeting for each. Needless to say, much more goes to paid, since, by its nature, it requires us to pay for every advertising interaction.
So, from an (inhouse run) advertiser's standpoint, I would recommend that equal efforts (be they money, person hours, technology, etc.) should be placed on SEO and PPC.
I think for me, it's easier to split test not only Google Ads, but also sales capture pages. Which ever gets the most click-through-rate and conversions is what should be organically optimized.
Also, I think that people searching organically are in research mode, whereas people going to PPC are in "buy now" mode.
I think the difference between PPC and SEO has a lot to do with the industry your client(s) are in. My job envolves both. My clients are business owners who are used to paying X for Y. PPC allows you to show specific ROI as a previous poster has mentioned. When your clients are "instant gratification" minded then PPC is way to show them what there money is going toward. If a client wants to make changes to an ad then its one click not waiting for the spider's to index.
I agree that to some SEO is still the "voodoo" of marketing. Not only are there no set rules only implied one, but the PPC model is something that traditional marketing people can easily grasp. It seems that every client knows what the paid results are and in my industry is very concerned about branding. SEO is a tough sell when it requires more work with content and then a wait and see result.
I would rather my clients focus 75% of their budget on SEO but until they can see results when they want them, that will continue to be a tough sell for my sales team.
For at least three reasons:
- There is perception that "information seekers" click on organic search results, while "buyers" seek out and click on sponsored search ads.
- PPC includes the "media cost" of paying for the clicks. SEO clicks are "free."
- Some terms are just darned difficult to SEO for. SEM gives you guaranteed placement for these.
I've elaborated on these points in Why PPC WIll Always Cost More Than SEO if you're interested.
The problem with SEO is that it takes time and is hard work to deliver. The mistake SEO firm are making is not educating the market. Instead, they all say they are the best.
I believe the real problem is that almost all SEOs are terrible marketing firms.
Haha. I just referred a friend to this article and I notice that there are 4 thumbs down. I bet those thumbs down are 4 search engineers that read SEOmoz. :D
Nice eyeball graph. Why don't you source it?
This is a great point you make. We try to help our clients understand the difference between SEO and paid traffic. But some just want to buy the traffic, without paying much attention to the disciplines that would impact conversions let alone long term benefits of SEO. We tell them that SEO should be their foundation before they jump into paid traffic. It allows us to enhance their websites, landing pages, etc. to impact conversions before they start buying traffic. We'll keep trying to educate people one entrepreneur at a time.
It would be very interesting to see how this breaks down in 2010. Much has changed on the SERP, but heat maps are likely the same. However my sense is the disparity in spend between SEO and SEM is even greater.
Great informative article！
Any updated stats for 2011 or 2012? I suspect the overall trend will be similar when it comes to spending habits of companies... Thanks much!
PPC is something like who can read this post can handle. SEO is very much technical and requires lot of knowledge ,companies generally think that in SEO there is no gurantee but PPC gives some guranteed visitors so they rely on PPC more.
This post provides a pretty good base level justification for SEO. If I quote the stats in here to my clients then I'm already half-way through the sales process.
Talk about linkbait. I'm not sure how this was positioned into a "war" between paid & organic. Geez.
Looking at this from a purse agency perspective, it is far easier to take a client's ad budget and allocate those resources online. Okay, some of those resources.
The obvious benefit is the ability quantify engagement and ultimately ROI. "Yes, small business owner prospect, of course we can tell you how much profit you generate from this effort. And then you should spend while profit is above your target margin as we show in this monthly ROI report."
But doing so without a holistic SEO approach means the client must constantly feed the PPC monster. Many insist on simply saying, "Just tell me where my ads show, and I'll pay for each visitor." But by doing this, your organization becomes a commodity. If the only game in town is ROI from a paid campaign, then service and fees are the only differentiators.
Yuck.
We track the client's growth organically (and tell them upfront that we will recommend a pctg of incremental profit be used for organic) We then show conversions by source and kw. Ultimately, if we land a juicy link for you or create a special page with strong copy that converts like crazy, this too goes into the ROI calculation.
There is always a place for paid -- testing, new products, seasonal, all sorts of things. But SEO & SEM are symbiotic, not exclusive.
The biggest issue we face is the client who gets hooked on great ROI from their campaigns and doesn't want to invest in SEO.
The second biggest issue we face is that most clients consider Google the only acceptable game, even if there are other places that convert with better profitability.
We spend the majority of client services education time on those two issues.
good post gearge.
ps what's a "purse agency"?
good post george.
ps what's a "purse agency"?
@loki. Typo, sorry about that. I meant "pure agency" not "purse agency".
But we can always invent a new type of agency called a purse agency. I don't mind co-creating a trend!
This post was great. And I also think that SEO is better that paid advertisements, which seldom gets clicked. I learned a lot. I think I would have to remember this post when doing social media marketing services!
I'm starting to make head-way with some of my clients that organic is the way to go long-term. This posting will help reinforce it -- thanks so much.
I can see the difference, I would say more people click non-paid ads. But I still will continue to do both because it works! And I love doing SEO and PPC.
The PPC Campaign Management King
[links removed]
I'd like to see how things have changed in this regard since this post was first published... I mean, it's been almost four years to this day, so something must have changed... granted, I believe SEO is better than PPC in the long term, and thus things must have turned around in favor of SEO... however, it'd be good to know how much is spent in PPC vs SEO these days by companies, so if you guys have any updates on that info, they'd be more than welcome
i think PPC is explained with impressive clarity to new clients.
i'm only familiar with gg adwords but the interface is a no-brainer and you can get started on the tiniest of budgets.
whereas SEO is full of confusing terms and competing claims.
SEO has been around for 10 years or so and still has no governing body, no accreditation, no standards, and let's face it, more than a few cowboys.
take a look at the life coaching industry; it has a similar age yet those guys are really well organised.
Rand,
I think part of the problem lies in clients or inhouse teams not having the ability to prove ROI in the same way with SEO as with PPC. Its still far to easy to say - Look I made 135% profit with adwords than to say that about SEO.
SEO also relies on skill, hardwork, patience, and even a little luck - none of which are easily measured.
Also - for all the PPC tools out there, from $50 to $20,000 - are there any SEO tools? no.
At least there are tools webCEO, linkscape etc but none to assist with reporting ROI and giving you some hard data on profit...
Perhaps a moz tool? an expansion to linkscape? - tho it would have to allow us to download the program to run the data as we'd have to input analytics data, costs, sales etc in order to link it all together and prove to people the ROI and cost justification of SEO.
Then perhaps we'd see a rise in investment in SEO.
equally PPC is a love of agencies and inhouse.
A) its skill threshold is very low, anyone can use it.
b) anyone can compete - as long as you've budget or are selective then you can.
c) its advertising, which offline marketing teams and directors understand, place an add, get some business. SEO is technical - metawha?
d) PPC is quick, measured, easy, nontechnical, doesnt require development work, doesnt require high spend on consultants, inhouse specialists or specialist agencies.
So is it any surprise people take the ppc route?
I have been facinated by this trend, it must simply be because PPC is guaranteed, and SEO is a pie in the sky to large corporations. SEO still gives the small companies an edge.
An interesting related post here
https://www.seomoves.com/blog/seo-search-engine-optimization-vs-ppc-pay-per-click/
They attempt to monitizes this trend, it goes hand in hand with your post here.
You have a great website. I have always been a lurker, but you really hit a nerve with this post.
In China, PPC's hit rate is very low
Great post as usual!! Very insightful to see tyhose stats but Id love to see some updates as well. Im see the benefit of PPC but theres no long term benefit unless you want to keep spending.
Also - can anyone point me in the direction of a post/acticle/own thoughts on using PPC on your own brand name? I need some points to back up what I think but have only found basic articles that pretty much sit on the fence as to whether its worth it so need something that argues strongly one way or the other.
Thanks
As in any profession, there are PPC managers who are knowledgeable, skilled and have their clients' best interests at heart and there are PPC managers who are only focused on recurring revenue.
And for the client, PPC is like crack. If I'm buying PPC and agree to spend $500 a month and I'm seeing some results, then when my PPC manager calls me after one week and says my budget is spent and I need to authorize more spending, of course I agree! I don't want my ads to drop out of the engines and go back to being invisible!
I don't know what percentage of PPC spending can be attributed to this, but it's like an addiction that you can't quit. The client is pressured to spend and spend and spend way beyond their original intent.
While I am sure this goes on, I don't know how many companies are just willing to open the wallet and let the PPC manager have at it. Although we primarily work with small to medium size clients, I think you have to prove your worth and explain even more when your initial budget goes over, rather then them just saying "ok, here's my charge card".
I happen to be one of those who has a balance of effort spent more on seo than ppc.
The evident advantage of ppc, is getting 'the keyword' on the front page.
But with careful seo, I have been able to increase traffic weekly from organic search
I didn't read all the comments (yet) so this may have already been said but I think PPC spending is higher for these reasons
- it's immediate
- it's easier to understand and implement
- it's (often) guaranteed
- shady SEO's have damaged the reputation of SEO
Very helpful data, users clicks on ppc ads if they found anything attractive or exact they are looking with some extra features. More than 75% users trust on seo results, because they know these results have the things they are looking for., Very helpful post.
I think a lot of it is the way discussion are head about PPC and Organic SEO. For example when I explain the differences between ppc and SEO i let the client know that with SEO there is no guarentee, while with PPC we have a lot more control and can almost (not 100% of the time) guarantee they'll be seen. I don't do this to push PPC, but rather to let the client know that the reason they spend more with PPC is because of the immediate visability factor.
I really am very intrigued by the image showing the eye patterns on the page that you presented. Then taking a look at the percentage of visiblity and seeing that even being #10 on the first page can still garner that much attention is really amazing.
I think as a whole we need to be more clear about the long term ROI of SEO as opposed to PPC with our clients. Showing them that although their traffic may increase at a quicker rate, over the long term they will spend less on the traffic gained from organic SEO (in most cases).
I'm not sure the economic downturn will slow down PPC spend. I actually feel like it will do the exact opposite. If we can't guarantee that they will show up in organic and they need to "turn-around" their business quickly PPC is going to be the better choice. (IMO)
whoever made the comment about tools available for SEO vs PPC was dead on.
"Why does paid search earn so many more marketing dollars?"
I believe there are many reasons behinds this. I also believe there is some data misconception going on that can often skew the numbers.
Paid search is so attractive and recieves the lions share of the budget because it is so much simpler and so much easily scalable compared to SEO. Scale is what turns businesses into big businesses. SEO, as many of you know, is much more difficult to scale across a business's many pages, products, offers, websites and business units. Bid more on the stuff that produces positive ROI and less on the stuff that brings negative ROI, right? That brings up another reason why paid search is so much more attractive: trackability. It is quite easy to understand paid search and have a good idea on what is actually happening and what is being paid for. Selling paid search is also easier and simpler than SEO as is outsourcing and stopping it: hire an agency, install their tracking pixel, and wait for the sales to start rolling in. Not happy with their service? Cancel and hire another agency. You get instant results that you can report to your board of directors.
On the other hand, SEO is difficult for some people to understand because it is multi-faceted. Some people think it is simply an IT play while others believe it is just about content. And link development - well thats even more difficult to understand. I have personally seen many huge ecommerce and lead generation companies turn away from great SEO opportunities because of inability to manipulate and alter their website. Perhaps if this was different, the data would be as well. But IT being IT and politics in business always being there, we are faced with a situation that does not always lend itself very well to SEO-based website changes.
Now about the skewed data - I dont know what the numbers are actually reporting exactly but I have a feeling that it is only reporting direct amounts paid to either SEO agencies or internal SEO salaries. I dont think it takes into account the possibility of huge expendatures into IT. Currently, my agency and I are in the middle of a campaign with a Fortune 50 company that needed to completely revamp their un-optimized website(s). The amount they are paying us as a consultant pales in comparison to the internal IT investment they are taking on. I dont believe the stats above represent these types of costs which would greatly swell the SEO investment noted above.
Great numerical presentation of SEO vs. PPC.
I would say SEO Could be better if some one looking for long term business from his website.
I am not a single percent agree with above comment which was written by Singapore SEO, see below his comment:
One benefit of PPC is that anyone can do it. It is extremely easy to pick-up, and even if one makes mistakes, they still get some clicks, and have something to show - clicks, sales, revenue instantly.
PPC can not be done by any one, there are certain expert skills required to manage ppc campaign, choosing right keywords is the most important factors, otherwise you are going to pay for which you are not provide. One more thing, "is there any authorize resource where you can find, "Paid search links clicked more than organic listings?"IMO, i wouldn't agree with this point too.
Another Comment by Singapore SEO: See below
SEO is more in the air... don't know when it will materialise, and very difficult to quantify.
SEO does not allow an assumption so it won't be an air, if you are a seo company a making assumption for SEO than you wouln't get success with PPC too.
The matter of the fact to choose right keywords whether you are going with SEO or PPC.
Being as a SEO Company i would prefer both these services and deliver according objectives of clients.
You can read this story : SEO Vs. PPC is Not A Fight
Thanks,
RapidvectorSEO
I am totally agree with RapidVectorSEO
My marketing director (boss's boss) recently stopped by and asked, "what did we do in SEO for Q3 that lead us to double our organic $$s over Q3 of last year?"
If this were about PPC I would have jsut told him we used complex algorithms to expand our long tail reach while maximizing ROI on high traffic terms, while adjusting our spend for growth of the program. I could have used a spreadsheet!
Instead, I had to say that in the year plus I've been on the job, we've done dozens of "little things, since there aren't really huge levers for SEO and it's a gradual process," and that those things added up to produce the great result. Implied in that is that the "little things" are stuff he wouldn't understand or care about. There is no spreadsheet. There are only results.
Management likes a spreadsheet and that is why PPC gets all the funding.
I put my KW research, KW mapping, KW strategy and notes to the developer in a spreadsheet. Run baseline ranking reports. Run visibility reports. And I keep it updated. When I tweak something, I make a note of it. This way I can show the client exactly what I've discovered, what I recommend, and how it's affecting his site's ranking. And it helps me gauge the effectiveness of my own genius ;-)
I recently posted a page on our site giving a ROI case study with PPC vs SEO I find it helpful to walk clients thru the difference and potential for SEO.
Eric McGehearty, CEO
Globe Runner SEO
I felt compelled to refine my feedback and write a blog post on the subject:
SEO vs. SEM? Wrong move, think again
https://blog.zetainteractive.com/?p=48
i agree that it baffles me that some companies wont fork out the money for a serious SEO campaign, but will blow it on PPC without batting an eyelid.
Will never cease to amaze me really.
One benefit of PPC is that anyone can do it. It is extremely easy to pick-up, and even if one makes mistakes, they still get some clicks, and have something to show - clicks, sales, revenue instantly.
SEO is more in the air... don't know when it will materialise, and very difficult to quantify.
I have seen companies who have the #1 spot on Google for their keywords are still paying to Google to get the #1 Paid listing, because the truth is that the paid ad gets more clicks than the #1 organic listing.
Maybe in Singapore it's still up in the air, but SEO in the states is not "up in the air".
There's a reason why PPC is easy to understand but also hard for alot of companies to accept. That reason is because NOT EVERYONE can do PPC. It's not easy - not if you want your PPC spend to be profitable. Try it yourself - for competitive keywords. Try it without landing pages, without concern for quality score, and try it on $100 a month. See how far it gets you.
Too many companies, leads, prospects I speak too have a sour taste in their mouths with PPC because they had no idea what they were doing. They just put $100 or $300 in, sent traffic to the home page, and didn't LEARN. With such ignorance, they easily flushed $100 or $300 down the drain because their ads were clicked on and budget spent before getting any results.
On the other hand, those that DID have a large enough budget, that took some time to follow tips and suggestions, got to see measurable results for their PPC. Those who have experienced profitable PPC expenditure are the ones who know the value of PPC - and SEO. Most of my best clients know the value of both and know that leveraging both is the best strategy.
The world market may be different with SEO - and it maybe "easier" to rank with little effort. Not in the States. But maybe that's why you're able to do good business where you are. I have friends who do world market SEO in South Africa, Australia, etc. And their experiences are that the world markets are easier and more forgiving - but that's changing too.