View Full Version : SEO v PPC
I know there has been lots of discussions of this type but I am after some constructive answers specifically related to one of my sites. It is not the core part of my business but could help toward paying the bills. The site has only been live for a few months and a small amount of link building/article submission etc has been done. I set up an adwords campaign to start with which brings a bit of business through. Limited in my knowledge of online promotion, here I am cap in hand asking which way is best to proceed from you fine breed of people:rolleyes:.
I am targetting bespoke printed mugs, mainly the promotional side but I'll take work where ever we find it. We do other things on the site but that is our core line. Main question is, do I keep on the PPC and up my bids a bit which will keep me on the first page or should I now concentrate on a big push on the SEO side. Doing it in-house is slow going and we are getting busy with other things. From what costs I have seen on PPC, I reckon £70-80 will keep me on the front page on most terms. We get enough conversions to comfortably make a profit but there are far bigger orders out there to pick up.
What will be the most cost effective way of building things? The site is mugsandmats .co .uk
Thanks in advance,
Andrew
BusinessIdeas
14th May 2009, 08:59
For that kind of money you could do worse than to employ the services of a marketing expert to do your seo/marketing. I have been a member on this forum for a long time, and I know who I think is the best on here but I dont want to say in case it would offend others in the same field :)
I think it would probably embarass him too :)
sirearl
14th May 2009, 09:50
agree PPC would seem the best bet for you .Steve Gibson is highly recommended on the forum.
The cost of professional SEO can usually only be justified where the product value is in the higher bracket for the more competative products.
Earl
Thanks both.
The value of orders can be varied. Quite often £100-£200 but I have an order in the pipeline for £25K from the site. This is why I am starting to take it a bit more seriously. It's the bigger orders I want to start picking up.
DanHarrison
14th May 2009, 11:34
Something to remember, PPC will stop giving you leads when you stop paying.
When you get organic search traffic going (i.e. what you're loosely referring to by SEO), then it will typically carry on giving you traffic even if you're not continuously working on it.
My general recommendation is to do both until you get decent organic search rankings. And if you have no time, then do look for a decent agency to do it for you.
Dan
david64
14th May 2009, 13:50
If you want to rank for the keyword "bespoke printed mugs" (I am not sure if this is the actual keyword you want?) SEO should be quick and cheap as that keyword is not competitive. I'd imagine that other keywords in this area could also be relatively easily obtainable.
If PPC is working, the next step is SEO. You know PPC is working, so organic rankings should provide a lot more business for you. I don't agree with the point that organic SEO is more expensive than PPC. In a lot of cases, organic SEO is cheapr. I got one person I delt with organic rankings for the same price they were paying for PPC each month.
As Dan points out, if you are not stocked to the gills with cash, it would be best to find a small agency or freelancer. I believe all the SEO in this forum are freelancers.
sirearl
14th May 2009, 14:50
If you want to rank for the keyword "bespoke printed mugs" (I am not sure if this is the actual keyword you want?) SEO should be quick and cheap as that keyword is not competitive. I'd imagine that other keywords in this area could also be relatively easily obtainable.
If PPC is working, the next step is SEO. You know PPC is working, so organic rankings should provide a lot more business for you. I don't agree with the point that organic SEO is more expensive than PPC. In a lot of cases, organic SEO is cheapr. I got one person I delt with organic rankings for the same price they were paying for PPC each month.
As Dan points out, if you are not stocked to the gills with cash, it would be best to find a small agency or freelancer. I believe all the SEO in this forum are freelancers.
The problem is that no one searches for "bespoke printed mugs" and even"printed mugs" has an insignificant amount of traffic.
The only worth while traffic is for "mugs" which of course is high competition and will not be cheap to get a decent organic ranking for.
Organic ranking for high profit or quantity goods is going to be expensive as the people capable of obtaining these rankings are not cheap freelance or not..:)
Earl
david64
14th May 2009, 15:03
The problem is that no one searches for "bespoke printed mugs" and even"printed mugs" has an insignificant amount of traffic.
I am not sure what keywords he actually wants. You are right that bespoke printed mugs is not going to bring in much anything, but "printed mugs" seems quite good to me - decent traffic, lots of longtails and also lots of other similar keywords.
Site at position one for "printed mugs" is PR2, not too many links and doesn't have the keywords in the title. Should be very easy to rank for it.
Whatever keywords he wants, I'd imagine they will be easy and since he's making profit of PPC, I think SEO would be a good choice.
Thanks again.
I have really been targeting 2 word phrases. The most popular are -printed mugs, custom mugs, promotional mugs, bespoke mugs, photo mugs, mug printing etc. There isn't a "one size fits all" keyword for this really so several phases I need to rank on if in the organic listings. Ideally I would like to be up on the first page but the ones up there do either have substantial links etc, whilst others might be higer as they are linked to by other Promo companies who use there site as a specialist portal.
Will better results come from being higer in the search engines or is click through similar to PPC?
david64
14th May 2009, 19:29
Organic listings should bring you better rankings. I don't really have much experience with PPC, but from what I've seen the traffic has always been greater from the organic listings. For example, my previous company was pos. 1 for "web design", which generated about 250 clicks a day, but PPC for the same keyword did not match.
There are a couple of highly linked sites in your niche. However a few of your keywords are not very competative, in particular "printed mugs". I think a budget of £500-1,000 would get you in the mix on page one.
Thanks again.
I have really been targeting 2 word phrases. The most popular are -printed mugs, custom mugs, promotional mugs, bespoke mugs, photo mugs, mug printing etc. There isn't a "one size fits all" keyword for this really so several phases I need to rank on if in the organic listings. Ideally I would like to be up on the first page but the ones up there do either have substantial links etc, whilst others might be higer as they are linked to by other Promo companies who use there site as a specialist portal.
Will better results come from being higer in the search engines or is click through similar to PPC?
sirearl
14th May 2009, 19:30
Thanks again.
I have really been targeting 2 word phrases. The most popular are -printed mugs, custom mugs, promotional mugs, bespoke mugs, photo mugs, mug printing etc. There isn't a "one size fits all" keyword for this really so several phases I need to rank on if in the organic listings. Ideally I would like to be up on the first page but the ones up there do either have substantial links etc, whilst others might be higer as they are linked to by other Promo companies who use there site as a specialist portal.
Will better results come from being higer in the search engines or is click through similar to PPC?
Organic listings will in general have 4-10 times the click through rate of PPC.
But does depend on the product and how well the description and general message is used.
One of the biggest advantages of organic listings is the much more space one has to describe your product,telephone number e.t.c.
Earl
david64
14th May 2009, 19:32
And you don't have to worry about click fraud.
One of the biggest advantages of organic listings is the much more space one has to describe your product,telephone number e.t.c.
So I guess long term goal is the organic listings. PPC as a quick temporary solution.
driansmith
14th May 2009, 22:12
I am targetting bespoke printed mugs, mainly the promotional side but I'll take work where ever we find it. We do other things on the site but that is our core line. Main question is, do I keep on the PPC and up my bids a bit which will keep me on the first page or should I now concentrate on a big push on the SEO side. Doing it in-house is slow going and we are getting busy with other things. From what costs I have seen on PPC, I reckon £70-80 will keep me on the front page on most terms.
As a minimum, I would divert some of your money into a professional SEO consultant - on the basis that (when done correctly) this will generate long-term (and free) traffic from organic results.
david64
14th May 2009, 22:46
So I guess long term goal is the organic listings. PPC as a quick temporary solution.
If you wanted to reduce the cost of SEO, you could find an SEO who will help you do the SEO yourself.
I think I need to move toward the paid seo route and eventually lessen ppc.
I have been doing seo myself but this is on a couple of sites. I have done the regular link building, press releases, article submission etc. but some of these take quite a while to take effect. The site has been moving up gradually and for some phrases is on the first page but for others could be page 12/13/14.
What monthly budget am I looking at to speed things up? I guess I already know the answer, the more the spend the quicker......
directmarketingadvice
15th May 2009, 08:05
Thanks both.
The value of orders can be varied. Quite often £100-£200 but I have an order in the pipeline for £25K from the site. This is why I am starting to take it a bit more seriously. It's the bigger orders I want to start picking up.
I wonder if the layout/look of your site is part of the reason you're not appealing so much to the bigger companies.
IMO, it looks more like a B2C site than a B2B.
Also - and this tends to be true in the promo items industry - you don't have online coversion processsing. And, you're combining this with hiding your phone number away. Both of these things will seriously hurt your conversion rate.
IMO, if you sort out your conversion process, improve your usability and make your site look more "serious", you'll find you'll bring in a lot more money.
I think I need to move toward the paid seo route and eventually lessen ppc.
If it's making you money, why would you want to do less of it? Do you not like money?
Steve
Thanks for the reply Steve. The site is primarily aimed at B2B but there is a substantial amount of traffic from B2C as well. I often get people from the forces ringing up or students etc all of which might order 50/100 which is fine by me. I thought the site was "Business" enough but friendly. The images are all toward the business side but agree the look is not overly corporate. I could have gone down the same route as many others but wanted something different. I thought it was easily recogniseable but hopefully not in a bad way.
I think the thing is with the bigger companies is that they have their regular suppliers in place that they are used to buying from. Creatures of habit and all that. I already supply many of the bigger companies but not through this site. We are also a trade printer of many of our items so supply other promo companies.
I will place our phone number on every page like you suggest. Payment processing I don't think would help. Even with pricing very visible, I don't think we have taken one order where the customer hasn't still asked for a quote. There is a process of ....can we do this/ will this work/ can I use a jpeg and so on. No one really just buys without going through some kind of Q&A session.
PPC is ticking along but pushing toward organic litings is for the longterm good. If as Earl so kindly mentioned I will get more click throughs being positioned naturally then that must be a better option.
Cheers
Andrew
I wonder if the layout/look of your site is part of the reason you're not appealing so much to the bigger companies.
IMO, it looks more like a B2C site than a B2B.
Also - and this tends to be true in the promo items industry - you don't have online coversion processsing. And, you're combining this with hiding your phone number away. Both of these things will seriously hurt your conversion rate.
IMO, if you sort out your conversion process, improve your usability and make your site look more "serious", you'll find you'll bring in a lot more money.
If it's making you money, why would you want to do less of it? Do you not like money?
Steve
directmarketingadvice
15th May 2009, 09:01
PPC is ticking along but pushing toward organic litings is for the longterm good. If as Earl so kindly mentioned I will get more click throughs being positioned naturally then that must be a better option.
I have to say I disagree with the either/or approach.
Steve
I am looking at continuing with ppc for the time being as seo doesn't take effect overnight. I thought both would be the right option currently but a push on seo to give it a boost I thought would have been better.
Happy to take any advice though.
sirearl
15th May 2009, 09:22
I have to say I disagree with the either/or approach.
Steve
quite agree .I did also mention that it may require large wads of cash to get a useful organic ranking and may take quite a while.
Lets say as an example 10k and 4 months or more.
there may be a strong argument to continue PPC under professional management.
Earl
billkruse
15th May 2009, 12:17
I have to say I disagree with the either/or approach.
Steve
Me too, if I may. If you can get a highly visible (say top three) organic listing togather with a highly visible PPC display for the same key phrase you can get a kind of feedback loop sets in where you have not twice the clicks you might expect from either/or but around four times as many. This effect, so far unnamed AFAIK, was just a whisper on the breeze years ago but one reads of it more often now. You can get freaky results from using both PPC and organic SEO.
BB
fisicx
15th May 2009, 12:33
What you want ideally is a good organic ranking and a prominent PPC advert, It doubles the impact.
If PPC is bringing you converting traffic then keep the PPC - it is likely to be a lot cheaper then a major SEO campagin.
The other thing to consider is the effectiveness of the website. If you are getting lots of traffic but few sales then you need to fix the site before spending any more money on marketing. It's easier (and more cost effective) to double your conversions than it is to double the number of visitors.
Thanks again to all that have replied.
In an ideal world I would love to be at No. 1 in the rankings and having ppc showing up whenever mugs were mentioned. My budget won't allow me to compete at this level right now. If I find the site keeps ticking over as it has from the first month then I might keep upping the budget. As it is I don't really want to spend more than £100 per month at the current time. I don't think this is a realistic budget to push both area's so how would I be best spending the budget?
P.s. Happy to increase the budget if anyone wants to take payment in bespoke mugs;)
billkruse
15th May 2009, 14:10
Thanks again to all that have replied.
In an ideal world I would love to be at No. 1 in the rankings and having ppc showing up whenever mugs were mentioned. My budget won't allow me to compete at this level right now. If I find the site keeps ticking over as it has from the first month then I might keep upping the budget. As it is I don't really want to spend more than £100 per month at the current time. I don't think this is a realistic budget to push both area's so how would I be best spending the budget?
P.s. Happy to increase the budget if anyone wants to take payment in bespoke mugs;)
Give it to an SEO as a consulting fee and do the work yourself they dictate. If it takes more than a month for you to do the work, make it £100 a quarter maybe. Whatever. I've got clients that pay me all sorts for all sorts, you have to find an individual way of working with each one that works for both parties.
BB
Rob Willox
15th May 2009, 14:59
The title is not a criticism, more an observation. It's a bit like comparing apples and oranges. In this case they both drive traffic to site but by very different methods and routes.
PPC, in the short term, can drive traffic, quickly, to a newly launched site whereas organic search can take, in some cases, months depending on how well the site/pages/content is optimised.
Additionally, and in particular, PPC can be highly targeted to specific products and promotions. More importantly ads can be written to target specific keywords leading to a highly targeted landing page. Taken together they contribute to higher conversions.
In this scenario the 5 most searched keywords (last 30 days) appear to be:-
personalised mugs 3,500 £1.22
promotional mugs 2,300 £3.29
photo mugs 1,200 £0.74
novelty mugs 1,200 £0.63
printed mugs 1,200 £1.92
(The figure following the keyword phrase is no of searches/month and following is Google's suggested bid cost.)
In your case I don't think you are targeting any of the above phrases as taking 'photo mugs' as example your ad doesn't appear until page 4 of search results.
My initial suggestion would be to get some professional SEO advice (a number of elements of site need adjustment) before will challenge for page 1 listings and look at PPC campaign in relation to targeted keywords, supporting ad and landing page copy to maximise conversion. And test a few variations of each to see which converts best.
A few of the suggested bid prices of the above are not that high and could probably be minimised with a good quality score (highly targeted campaign). Just how much you can afford to spend to make a sale depends on a number of factors not least you average order value.
calciumtech
19th May 2009, 21:56
Hi,
I have to say you need to mix it up. I have 5 websites in the top 5 of google, now none of these need specific PPC advertising, but I have a few pages that just are floating about that I pay peanuts for with PPC.
Get the SEO done on the website as a priority, and build free links of varying quality sites (not all page ranked the same) and they must have relevance for what you are doing, so in other words dont get a football team or something because that is not relevant.
Be careful because you will find that the PPC will gradually start to eat into your money and you said £70 a week well thats £280 a month and that is a lot of money for a new business.
Please, Please be wise with you money, be careful, there are 100,000 people trying to take every penny you have from you now online, dont let them, you have to do the hard work, it will PAY OFF long term for you.
I truly hope I have been helpful. Its easy for others to claim things but I am at the top looking down and I can be truthful and honest to you. I hope it helps you.
eventdomain
20th May 2009, 12:21
Dunno why so many see a problem with this - it's so easy to do.
1. Create 3 or 4 adwords adverts
2. Set up your ads
3. Monitor each advert and tweak until you get each one perfect
4. Keep the best performing advert
5. Repeat process to improve clickthroughs
Just a quick update.
We have changed the site a bit relating to some of the feedback. Highly visible phone number, bit more "Business" looking and hopefully will catch the attention quicker with offers available on first page rather than having to click through.
Any further feedback appreciated? We are still making more changes so not quite finished yet.
Cheers,
Andrew
Forgot to mention the "Recent Work" bit will also be incorporated into a blog and click through from there. I here it's good for SEO ;).
edmondscommerce
26th May 2009, 09:50
The ideal situation is to do both. Just relying on PPC makes you really vulnerable if someone in your market comes along with a big budget and little understanding and pushes the CPC up through the roof beyond your profitability threshold.
serendipitybusiness
27th May 2009, 10:03
If your conversion ratio is working for your PPC campaign then I would continue to use this for your bread and butter traffic whilst working on your link popularity in the background to enhance your natural search engine rankings.
Hope this helps
spike1968
27th May 2009, 17:06
Hi,
I tend to use PPC for a limited period whilst using SEO as a longer term solution. PPC will drive initial traffic and kick start your site traffic, SEO will then compliment this.
Initially all your traffic will come from PPC but after time (and this varies) you will find that your organic will be the majority. I tend to stop PPC for my clients from 6-18months.
Cheers
Kneoteric_eSolutions
28th May 2009, 09:20
It definitely has to be a healthy blend of both - PPC and SEO. Since the website is new and will take some time to start ranking for the targeted key phrases, you would have to bank more on PPC for now. But eventually you could ease out on PPC when your organic rankings start to show.
Since ranking for core term (competitive ones) is atleast a couple of months away, you can start working on long tail variation of these core terms. You can tap your core terms via PPC for the time being. You can then gradually work your way up on organic rankings for your core terms and go easy on PPC. You could even limit PPC to long tail keywords when you start ranking high for core terms. This would ensure that you are able to capture the entire spectrum.