Part IV: Marketing your Website - Paying for High Ranking

Pay for Placement Search Engines - To Pay or Not to Pay

by Pauline Sugarman

Created July 2004; Revised February 2006

Google’s Ad Words

Google places it PPC ads on the top side of the regular search result, each in a rectangular box. Ads from Google AdWords are currently also showing up on AOL. Participating in their PPC services will not get you listed in the regular Google listings.

With Google, you don’t get to bid on an exact first, second or third placement. Rather, your position is determined by your bid price plus the relevancy of the words in your ad plus your click-through rate.

Google does appear to be setting minimums for keywords, even if you are the only one bidding on it. Part of their reasoning it that the Return on Investment (ROI) needs to take into account the lifetime value of the customer. But some of the minimums can be quite low ($.05 per click).

If you want to learn more about Google’s AdWords, a highly recommended read is Andrew Goodman’s “21 Ways to Maximize Your Google AdWords Campaign”. The cost is $49.

Yahoo’s Overture

Overture’s PPC ads can be found at the top of each Yahoo and MSN search results as “sponsored Listings” as well as other search engines such as Lycos and HotBot. Overture charges a minimum of 10 cents per bid but the average cost per click is 30 cents. Bids are made through and auto-bidding process. The winning bid is charged 1 cent more than the next bid down.

Paying by the click can add up quickly. If you are receiving a 1000 click-throughs in a day, you will be looking at paying $300 - for just one day! More competitive words can cost up to $10 per click or more.

Should I Pay or Should I Go “Natural”

For most people what it comes down to is time versus money.

Getting Listed the Natural Way Takes Time

Going the “natural” route to high rankings takes effort and time.

First you have to put in the effort to optimize your site (see Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Overview - SEO Help Files) so the search engines are “happy” with it. Once you have done all you can to ensure each page is optimized, and have uploaded your site, you will have to wait for Google and the other search engines to find you.

Google crawls through the web by following the links. So, in order for Google to find you and index you, there must be links from outside your website leading to your site. A Directory listing is considered a link to your site. And they are a good foundation for a linking campaign. But you will need to submit to the directories first and then wait for them to index you before Google can follow that link to your site. Getting listed in the DMOZ directory, a well respected Directory, can take up to two months.

Google crawls through and re-indexes its database about every month. On top of that , Google has started placing new websites into a holding pattern before truly adding it to its index, and this can be many months. So, if you submit to the directories, and then wait for Google’s next re-indexing you could be looking at much as 8-10 months before you will show up in Google. And that’s just for Google to index the top level of your site. Google takes even longer to crawl through to deeper levels of your site. Yahoo and MSN do not have a delay built in at this time.

At that point there is no guarantee that your site will be highly ranked. It depends on the effort you have put into optimizing your site for the search engines. Quite frankly, if you have done everything “right”, it could easily take six months to a year for you to see your web site in top positions for your chosen key word phrases.

Getting Listed the Paying Route - Takes Money

There are reasons, as you can see, for paying to be in the search engines. Yes, you will have to fork over the money, but you will be in the search engines within a couple of days instead of waiting months. If money is not such an issue but time is, then PPI and PPC campaigns can be an excellent option.

Lately the prices for the more competitive keywords have skyrocketed, forcing out smaller companies that can’t afford to stay in the bidding wars. This trend is predicted to continue as more companies make their way onto the internet.

Another issue to consider for PPC campaigns is whether anyone is paying much attention to those Ads and Sponsored Listings. Some estimate that only 10-20% of web surfers bother clicking through to ‘Sponsored Listings’ because they know they’ve bought their way in and are not a true search result. And many studies show that sales conversion rates are low for PPC ads, averaging about 1%.

Compare that with Natural Search Engine Marketing campaigns where the sales conversion rates are estimated at 2 - 4% but can be as high as 10%.

Solution – Combine your Natural SEO Efforts with PPI and PPC

Most specialists in Search Engine Marketing advice that you consider a mixture of natural search engine optimization and Paid options. For one thing, Google is constantly adjusting its algorithm (see Search Engine Ranking Information – Key Elements). You may work really hard to get highly ranked for your key word phrases only to find yourself buried, 600 listings back in the search results. If your business depends on internet traffic, getting bumped from a top ranked position can be a real set back.

By doing a mixture of natural optimizing and paid advertising, your search engine experience should be less volatile.  It will also allow for greatest exposure for your company and build greater credibility with your customers.

Here are some tips for deciding on the right mix for your search engine marketing efforts:

Next, we will review Google and Yahoo's PPC Programs in more detail...

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